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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



POEMS. 



BY 



HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. 



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nuh.M.yy^' ■ 



BOSTON: 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. 

NEW YORK : 1 1 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET. 

^ 1882. 



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Copyright, 1881, 
By HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. 

Ali rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. 



CONTENTS. 

—4 

PAGE 

An April Madrigal i 

A Four-o'Clock 3 

The Pine Tree . ... . . .5 

Clouds . . 7 

Inside Plum Island 9 

WlTCHWORK . . . . . . . 18 

O Soft Spring Airs 21 

Flower Songs: 

I. The Violet . . ..... 23 

II. The Hyacinth 25 

III. The Rose . . . . . . .26 

IV. The Lily 28 

Fancies : 

I. Snow Squall 29 

II. A Snow-Drop ...... 30 

III. At Dawn 31 

IV. Maytime 31 

V. September 32 

A Flower Piece 34 

Evanescence 38 



iv CONTENTS. 

Cavete, Felices . . . . . ' . . 39 

Here and There 40 

Mother Mine 41 

On the Bust of Charlotte CusnkAN . . 44 

Sarah Hildreth Butler 46 

Peace 53 

The Lonely Grave 55 

Between the Graves 59 

The Granadan Girl's Song .... 61 

The Blue . . . . . . . .65 

Our Neighbor . . ... . . . 67 

Mayflowers 69 

Days of Rest ■ . 70 

Magdalen 72 

In the Caravan 74 

Witnesses 76 

Alive ....'....■. 78 

A Christmas Thought 80 

Candlemas . . 81 

Blind . . . . . . . . .82 

Palmistry . . . ... . . .84 

Lullaby 85 

First and Last ....... 86 

Second Sight 87 

Under the Breath 89 

Under the Snow-Drifts 90 

Song ' ... 91 

Oak Hill .92 



CONTENTS. V 

Loss AND Gain 93 

An Old Song 94 

The Birthday . 9^ 

Marion 9^ 

The Nun and Harp loi 

Two 103 

Godspeed io4 

Longing 106 

A Sigh . . ... . . . 107 

A Wreck . 108 

In Summer Nights: 

I. Music in the Night .... 109 

IL Boat Song . in 

IIL Intermezzo in 

IV. Winds from Sea 112 

V. Night in Texas 113 

VI. Lovers ii5 

VII. Under the Window . . . ♦ 116 
VIII. In the Garden . . . . . .117 

IX. Ballad ....... 119 

X. Fantasia 120 

XI. Song 120 

XII. Listening 121 

XIII. Nocturne . . . • • • 122 

XIV. Over Again 123 

Sheltep-ED • . . 126 

The Old Poet and his Wife . . . .128 

Love in Idleness. — I * '^ZTt 



vi CONTENTS. 

Only a Leaf. — II 134 

A Lover's Garden . . . . . . 135 

At an Old Grave 138 

Left Ashore 143 

Twain 147 

Ali . . . 149 

Agatha's Song . .... . . '157 

Esher's Song . ..... . . 160 

My Own Song ..... . .162 

Measure for Measure ..... . 164 

Valentine's Day . . . . , . .165 

The River ........ 168 



POEMS. 



AN APRIL MADRIGAL. 

In those charmed ages, dark and rich 
With mystery, when, sailing first, 

The mariner on unknown seas 

And summer shores bewildered burst, — 

He planted there some royal sign, 

And claimed the place by right divine : 

So I, who came when April skies 
Lighten the land and get me glee, 

And flushed with sleep the fair earth turns 
Her rosy side to welcome me, 

Claim the glad month my fief and fere. 

And take possession of the year. 

I take possession of the year : 
Yet as a viceroy I hold, 



AN APRIL MADRIGAL. 

The bloom from off the sea I strip, 

The freshness from the budding mould, 
All fragrances, all balms that be, 
My Sovereign, I hoard for thee ! 



A FOUR-O'CLOCK. 

Ah, happy day, refuse to go ! 
Hang in the heavens forever so ! 
Forever in mid-afternoon, 
Ah, happy day of happy June ! 
Pour out thy sunshine on the hill, 
The piny wood with perfume fill, 
And breathe across the singing sea 
Land-scented breezes, that shall be 
Sweet as the gardens that they pass, 
Where children tumble in the grass ! 

Ah, happy day, refuse to go ! 
Hang in the heavens forever so ! 
And long not for thy blushing rest 
In the soft bosom of the west. 
But bid gray evening get her back 
With all the stars upon her track ! 
Forget the dark, forget the dew, 
The myster}' of the midnight blue. 



A FOUR-aCLOCK. 

And only spread thy wide warm wings 
While summer her enchantment flings ! 

Ah, happy day, refuse to go ! 

Hang in the heavens forever so ! 

Forever let thy tender mist 

Lie like dissolving amethyst 

Deep in the distant dales, and shed 

Thy mellow glory overhead ! 

Yet wilt thou wander, — call the thrush, 

And have the wilds and waters hush 

To hear his passion-broken tune, 

Ah, happy day of happy June ! 



THE PINE TREE. 

Before your atoms came together 
I was full-grown, a tower of strength, 

Seen by the sailors out at sea, 
With great storms measuring all my length, 

Making my mighty minstrelsy, 

Companion of the ancient weather. 

Yours ! Just as much the stars that shiver 
When the frost sparkles overhead! 

Call yours as soon those viewless airs 
That sing in the clear vault, and tread 

The clouds ! Less yours than theirs — 

The fish-hawks swooping round the river ! 

In the primeval depths, embowering 

My broad boughs with my branching peers, 

My gums I spilled in precious drops — 
Ay, even in those elder years 

The eagle building in my tops. 

Along my boughs the panther cowering. 



6 THE PINE TREE. 

Beneath my shade the red man slipping, 
Himself a shadow, stole away ; 

A paler shadow follows him 1 
Races may go, or races stay, 

The cones upon my loftiest limb 

The winds will many a year be stripping; 

And there the hidden day be throwing 
His fires, though dark the dead prime be 

Before the bird shake off the dew. 

Ah ! what songs have been sung to me ; 

What songs will yet be sung, when you 

Are dust upon the four winds blowing ! 



CLOUDS. 

.High in the rare crepusculine ether, 

Cirrus, and fine, and fading fair, 
A purpler film leaves all beneath her. 
And hovering where remoter bounds are 
bare, 
Dreams of the vanished light on so serene a 
height, 
And shreds her vapor into ragged air. 

Flamed she erewhile on some sunset's 
bosom, 
Scarlet and piled with fleeciest snow. 
Crowning the side-sky with ruddy blossom — 
To suffer so her sanguine ardors go. 
And hang, with meek surrender abandoning 
her splendor. 
Like nothing but the breath of one below ? 



8 CLOUDS. 

One long sad cloud that girts the quiet 
even, 
With half a rosy reflex broods, 
In doubt if this be earth or that be heaven, 
And with wild moods stolen from strange 
solitudes 
Still drifts on slumberous tides, and in a 
hushed heart hides 
Low tunes and melancholy interludes. 

O changing clouds, that drop the great 
sun's glory. 
Dimly through gloom to draw your wings, 
Till over you stars make the spaces hoary. 
And ancient springs to flood your passing 
brings — 
Our lives are vapors, too, we gather like the 
dew, 
And fade and float wherever fortune flings. 



INSIDE PLUM ISLAND. 

We floated in the idle breeze, 

With all our sails a-shiver; 
The shining tide came softly through, 

And filled Plum Island River. 

The shining tide stole softly up 
Across the wide green splendor, 

Creek swelling creek till all in one 
The marshes made surrender. 

And clear the flood of silver swung 
Between the brimming edges, 

And now the depths were dark, and now 
The boat slid o'er the sedges. 

And here a yellow sand spit foamed 
Amid the great sea meadows. 

And here the sleeping waters gloomed 
Lucid in emerald shadows. 



lO INSIDE PLUM ISLAND. 

While, in their friendly multitude 
Encamped along our quarter, 

The host of hay-cocks seemed to float 
With doubles in the water. 

Around the sunny distance rose 

A blue and hazy highland, 
And winding down our winding way 

The sand hills of Plum Island — 

The windy dunes that hid the sea 

For many a dreary acre, 
And muffled all its thundering fall 

Along the wild South Breaker. 

We crept by Oldtown's marshy mouth, 

By reedy Rowley drifted. 
But far away the Ipswich bar 

Its white caps tossed and shifted. 

Sometimes we heard a bittern boom, 

Sometimes a piping plover, 
Sometimes there came the lonesome cry 

Of white gulls flying over. 



INSIDE PIUM ISLAND. II 

Sometimes, a sudden fount of light, 
A sturgeon splashed, and fleeting 

Behind the sheltering thatch we heard 
Oars in the rowlocks beating. 

But all the rest was silence, save 

The rippling in the rushes. 
The gentle gale that struck the sail 

In fitful swells and gushes. 

Silence and summer and the sun, 

Waking a wizard legion. 
Wove as we went their ancient spells 

In this enchanted region. 

No spectral care could part the veil 
Of mist and sunbeams shredded, 

That everywhere behind us closed 
The labyrinth we threaded. 

Beneath our keel the great sky arched 

Its liquid light and azure; 
We swung between two heavens, ensphered 

Within their charmed embrasure. 



12 INSIDE PLUM ISLAND. 

Deep in that watery firmament, 
With flickering lustres splendid, 

Poised in his perfect flight, we saw 
The painted hawk suspended. 

And there, the while the boat-side leaned, 
With youth and laughter laden, 

We saw the red fin of the perch, 
We saw the swift menhaden. 

Outside, the hollow sea might cry. 
The wailing wind give warning, 

No whisper saddened us, shut in 
With sunshine and the morning. 

Oh, far, far off the weary world 

With all its tumult Waited, 
Forever here with drooping sails 

Would we have hung belated ! 

Yet when the flaw came ruffling down, 
And round us curled and sallied. 

We skimmed, with bubbles on our track, 
As glad as when we dallied. 



INSIDE PLUM ISLAND. 1 3 

Broadly the bare brown Hundreds rose, 
The herds their hollows keeping, 

And clouds of wings about our mast 
From Swallowbanks were sweeping. 

While evermore the Bluff before 

Grew greenly on our vision, 
Lifting beneath its waving boughs 

Its grassy slopes Elysian. 

There, all day long, the summer sea 
Creams murmuring up the shingle; 

There, all day long, the airs of earth 
With airs of heaven mingle. 

Singing we went our happy way. 

Singing old songs, nor noted 
Another voice that with us sang, 

As wing and wing we floated. 

Till hushed, we listened, while the air 

With music still was beating. 
Voice answering tuneful voice, again 

The words we sang repeating. 



14 INSIDE PLUM ISLAND. 

A flight of fluting echoes, sent 

With elfin carol o'er us — 
More blithe than bird-song in the prime 

Rang out the sea-blown chorus. 

Behind those dunes the storms had heaped 

In all fantastic fashion, 
Who syllabled our songs in strains 

Remote from human passion ? 

What tones were those that caught our own, 
Filtered through light and distance, 

And tossed them gayly to and fro 
With such a sweet insistence? 

What shoal of sea-sprites, to the sun 

Along the margin flocking, 
Dripping with salt dews from the deeps, 

Made this melodious mocking ? 

We laughed — a hundred voices rose 

In airiest fairiest laughter; 
We sang — a hundred voices quired 

And sang the whole song after. 



INSIDE PLUM ISLAND. 1 5 

One standing eager in the prow 

Blew out his bugle cheerly, 
And far and wide their horns replied 

More silverly and clearly. 

And falling down the falling tide, 

Slow and more slowly going, 
Flown far, flown far, flown faint and fine, 

We heard their horns still blowing. 

Then, with the last delicious note 

To other skies alluring, 
Down ran the sails ; beneath the Bluff 

The boat lay at her mooring. 

Came they, these subtile powers, to tell 

The poet, at their revels. 
How blest to live delightful days 

Among these meadow levels ? 

Blest as to lead his lonely thought 

Above horizons vaster. 
Close to the stars, transfigured on 

The awful heights of Shasta ! 



1 6 INSIDE PLUM ISLAND. 

Dreaming, he loitered still, we thought, 
Within his dream's bright portals ; 

We trifled with the hour, but he 
Had been with the immortals ! 

In vain, at night, we sought that sound - 

Stars over us and under 
Through all that watery wilderness 

Building a word of wonder ; 

Or groping, when the light-house spark 
Its witch-dance kept before us, 

Or when the unseen moon distilled 
Her deathly glamour o'er us; 

Or when, the twin lamps of their towers 

Emerald and ruby gleaming, 
Across the shadowy Merrimack 

The channel lights came streaming, — 

In vain our lingering halloo, 

Our roundelay untiring, 
No silver cry chimed far or nigh 

Of all that silver quiring. 



INSIDE PLUM ISLAND. 17 

Oh, never since that magic morn 
Those strains the boatman follows, 

Or piping from the sandy hills, 
Or bubbling from the hollows ! 

Yet long as summer breezes blow, 
Waves murmur, rushes quiver, 

Those warbling echoes everywhere 
Will haunt Plum Island River 1 



WITCHWORK. 

Undinje and all her troop 

Are out to-night j the tides are high ; 

Like spray far thrown across the moon, 

The clouds go sailing through the sky. 

The showers sweep down and shroud the world, 

On darkling rainbows skim afar; 

The brooks burst up beside the way, 

And great winds strip some naked star, — 

Great winds, mad winds, winds of March, 

That, streaming from the void and vast. 

Make mortals feel the impotence 

Of atoms borne before the blast. 

But Ariel holds them in his leash j 

All the Wild Ladies follow him; 

The great Ghandarvas blow their tunes 

From silver peaks and valleys dim j 

Witch and warlock, imps and elves. 

The urchins of the misty dale. 

And echoes mocking all the stir, 



WITCHWORK. 19 

Ride down the long gust of the gale ! 

Hark! do you catch the Banshee's cry? 

That is the hammering trolls you hear! 

Turn not too swiftly, lest you start 

The Lurley singing in your ear! 

Powers of earth and powers of air 

Are all abroad; the night is quick 

With strange and subtile sorceries, 

Bred of the storm, and swarming thick 

As bees about a blooming branch, 

Honey dripping, dew besprent, 

Steeped in sunshine underneath 

The blue of some great morning's tent. 

Each enchantment of the sphere, 

Blown from the sea and blown from shore. 

Works its wild will and wizardry 

While darkness wraps the gay uproar, 

Till rosy dawn shall set the spell j 

When, lo ! the bare boughs of yestreen 

Confess the magic of the March, 

And wave such veils of callow green 

As clad, in the old mystic tale. 

The rods that Jannes and Jambres throw, 

To break in blossom as they fall 



20 WITCHWORK. 

Before the feet of Pharaoh! 
For the fierce tempest, with its shock 
Of wind and sleet that midnight cloaks, 
Like some old thaumaturge who makes 
A mighty marvel, now evokes, — 
The violet on her dewy locks, 
The sunlight on her lifted wing, 
The clouds of incense floating by, — 
The Apparition of the Spring 1 



O SOFT SPRING AIRS! 

Come up, come up, O soft spring airs, 
Come from your silver shining seas. 

Where all day long you toss the wave 
About the low and palm-plumed keys ! 

Forsake the spicy lemon groves, 

The balms and blisses of the South, 

And blow across the longing land 
The breath of your delicious mouth. 

Come from the almond bough you stir, 
The myrtle thicket where you sigh ; 

Oh, leave the nightingale, for here 
The robin whistles far and nigh ! 

For here the violet in the wood 
Thrills with the fullness you shall take. 

And wrapped away from life and love 
The wild rose dreams, and fain would wake. 



22 O SOFT SPRING AIRS! 

For here in reed and rush and grass, 
And tiptoe in the dusk and dew, 

Each sod of the brown earth aspires 
To meet the sun, the sun and you. 

Then come, O fresh spring airs, once more 
Create the old delightful things. 

And woo the frozen world again 
With hints of heaven upon your wings ! 



FLOWER SONGS. 



THE VIOLET. 



Soar, solemn skies, your splendid height. 

And then in flashing darkness bend, 
Wrap the sweet earth about with night, 
And wide dim fields from end to end. 

Lying far off and low, 
Serenely with your brooding mystery 
blend. 

Slumber, sweet earth ! Thy lofty shade 
Glows with the shining phantom dreams 

That haunt thee nightly. Music made 
By burdened boughs and rustling streams, 

Now falling hushed and slow. 
Remotely lapped in dewy silence seems. 

And ever blow between, faint air. 
Blow with light, hesitating breath 



24 FLOWER SONGS. 

From melancholy places where 
Perpetual fragrance wandereth. 

O'er grave and garden blow, 
Over warm life, and over lonely death. 

And while the murmur rang, the sudden stir 

Of branches tost in a tumultuous gust 

Of showers and sweetness, darkling, swept the 

brow 
And passed. And through the fluted melody 
There breathed that sound that silence listens 

to — 
The crickets chirping their unbroken strain 
On th' hill-side, in the black warm summer 

night. 
Thrill of ethereal tone, as if were heard 
The rustle of the great orb's wings through 

space, 
What time the brede of stars its lustre floats 
In self-poised circles, and the dusk is deep. 

And then, as when across one's rarest dream, 
Just drawing off from the rich dregs of sleep, 
A cheery cry comes, and a broken tune, 



FLOWER SONGS. 25 

And in the covert of their odorous depths 
The robins shake their wild wet wings and 

flood 
The shallow shores of dawn with music, till 
The world is rosy, — so another voice 
Stole toward me, and I saw the hyacinth 
With its white helmet part the sun-soaked sod. 
And heard, as if from out the bells that 

wreathe 
Its spire of piercing perfume dropped the 

tones 
Like rain-drops tinkling in a way-side pool. 

THE HYACINTH. 

On topmost twigs when morning burns 

And lights his trembling fires. 
When from his wing the glad bird spurns 
The gray, and with his carol yearns 
• And to heaven's gate aspires, — 
The Maker looks upon his world 

That puts her beauty bare. 
All freshly, fragrantly impearled 

Beneath the tender air, — 
Looks on his soft and gleaming world 

And smiles to find her fair. 



26 FLOWER SONGS. 

Then waken, waken, 

The earth has taken 
Into the sunshine her wondrous way; 

Then waken, waken, 

The showers are shaken 
Loose from the leaves and melt away, • 
Lost in the beautiful light of day! 

Here the clear singing of the joyous sprite 
Startled the echoes of that underworld 
Where buds lie sleeping: straight the silent 

bush 
Beside me quivered in the happy light ; 
The red sap mounted along stem and spray, 
In countless hurried convolutions whirled 
To break at once into the perfect flower '.— 
The perfect flower — proud was the song she 

sung. 

THE ROSE. 

I am the one rich thing that morn 
Leaves for the ardent noon to win ; 

Grasp me not, I have a thorn. 
But bend and take my being in. 



FLOWER SONGS. 2J 

The dew-drop on my bosom gives 

The whole of heaven to searching eyes, 

Only he who sees it lives, 
And only he who slights it dies. 

Ah, what bewildering warmth and wealth 
Gather within my central fold ! 

Love-lorn airs of happy health 
Hive with the honey that I hold. 

This dazzling ruddiness divine 

Shrouds spicy savors deep and dear, 

Passion's sign and countersign, 
The inmost meaning of the sphere. 

Petal on petal opening wide. 
My being into beauty flows — 

Hundred-leaved and damask-dyed — 
Yet nothing, nothing but a rose 1 

And shaking off a sudden passionate tear 
The rose ceased warble, and in an ecstasy 
Shed all her lovely leaves around my feet 
And stood discrowned. 



28 FLOWER SONGS. 

Then gently was I ware 
Of a pure breath from that delicious hour 
When day sweeps all her glory after her 
To fresh horizons,— rapt and holy tone 
Where lingered yet the note that haply fell 
From seraphs leaning o'er the battlements 
Of shining tower and rampart far above, 
And ever in their idlesse singing praise. 

THE LILY. 

Lift thine eyes, against the deepening skies 
All the sacred hills like altars glow, 

Waiting for the hastening sacrifice 
Ere the evening winds begin to blow. 

Lift thy heart, and let the prayer depart 
To meet the heavenly flame upon the ^height. 

Till all thy shadows to effulgence start. 
And the calm brain grow clear with still 
delight ! 



FANCIES. 

I. SNOW SQUALL. 

Fall thickly, dallying snow-flakes, fall, 
Nor longer sport in dizzy showers ; 

The earth is waiting for your kiss, 
You phantoms of the flowers ! 

When, orbed in spicy dews, you rolled 
From leaf to leaf along those hours 

Sweet with the clethra's breath, you learned 
The secret of the flowers. 

Transfigured in your frosty bloom, 

Now like a wraith the pine tree towers. 

And on his savage boughs you hang 
Garlands of ghostly flowers. 

But sink into the sod, and wait 

The enchantments of this sphere of ours, 
And back to sunshine shall you burst, 

Branches of living flowers ! 



30 FANCIES. 

II. A SNOW- DROP. 

Only a tender little thing, 

So velvet soft and white it is j 
But March himself is not so strong, 

With all the great gales that are his. 

In vain his whistling storms he calls, 
In vain the cohorts of his power 

Ride down the sky on mighty blasts — 
He cannot crush the little flower. 

Its white spear parts the sod, the snows 
Than that white spear less snowy are. 

The rains roll off its crest like spray. 
It lifts again its spotless star. 

Blow, blow, dark March ! To meet you here. 
Thrust upward from the central gloom. 

The stellar force of the old earth 
Pulses to life in this slight bloom. 



FANCIES. 31 

III. AT DAWN. 

A gush of bird-song, a patter of dew, 
A cloud, and a rainbow's warning, 

Suddenly sunshine and perfect blue,— 
An April day in the morriing! 

Magical, autumn hazes are. 

And rare is your summer weather, 

With its purple midnight throbbing far 
Over lovers clasped together; 

But dearer to me these daring flowers 
The passionate noontide scorning, 

This gladsome slipping of shining showers, 
This April day in the niorning! 

IV. MAYTIME 

A mist of stars, a glimmering veil 
Before the ancient throne of night j 

A planet like a sentinel 
Upon the outer height. 



32 FANCIES. 

Far dusky deeps, and wide still air, 
Where fainting fragrance rolls along; 

A bird that warbles in his dream 
Some thrill of broken song. 

Thick fruit-flowers languishing for light 
Around us in the perfect gloom ; 

And, as we wait, far off and low, 
The distant breakers' boom. 

Ah ! among all delicious nights, 

Give me this hour's transcendent swoon ; 

Enchanted song, enchanted hush, 
And May without a moon ! 



V. SEPTEMBER. 

Why does the wind at the casement sigh 

In the gloom of the gray wet dawn ? 
The light is lost from the sea and sky, 
And the rose is gone ! 

Gone — and the sunshine after her, 
Color and fire and perfumed dew: 



FANCIES. 33 

Only the lonely wind may stir 
In the place she knew. 

Then follow, O wind, the happy ways 
Whither thy blushing love has fled: 
Round her are lustres of perfect days 
And all sweetness shed. 

Follow — for desert sky and sea 

Are dim with the rush of the rain : 
Summer is dead, and the day would be 
Alone with its pain! 
3 



A FLOWER PIECE. 

Wandering of late beside a northern shore 
That longed 'for summer, and the wild beach 

grass, 
And dip of oar, and plash of pearly feet, 
And happy laughter on its lonely sands, 
I heard a young voice caroling some song, 
Nor knew I was in elf-land while I heard. 
It sang, and slowly trembled into rest — 
Slowly, because the earth was loth to leave 
The high melodious dalliance. 

But before 
The singing fled to silence, eagerly 
A rustle and a rush of flying wings. 
Like leaflets blown before a frosty blast 
When woods stand shivering, caught and bore 

it off. 
Lost in the airy clamor of their flight. 
And, as they went, wild music followed them ; 
The tune the breeze winds in and out the 

grass, 



A FLOWER PIECE. 35 

The tune to which the clouds and sunshine 

play 
O'er slopes of blushing clover — faint at first, 
With many a fluttered echo frolicking, 
It fell its windy way — then loitered down. 
With lingering cadence of a long delay, 
Lightly as in the tenderest deeps of even 
The yellow blossom of the new moon drops 
Below the west that waits it. 

'Twas the voice 
Of all the elves of all the flowers that blow, 
Flocking to find the Spring, who slumbered 

yet. 
Nursed by the blue-eyed April. Willow plumes. 
Harebell, and cowslip, and anemone; 
The silver cinquefoil, and the columbine 
That bursts, a lance of hoarded light, from 

earth. 
And swings its red flame on the shining 

tipj 
The purple vetches, washed by salt sea 

sprays ; 
The frail convolvulus, that, ere the year 
Is at the flood, leagues with the building 
bird. 



36 A FLOWER PIECE. 

And the rude way-side tangles o'er her nest. 
Precious to plot and pleached alley, too, 
The mimic nun of the snow-drop, and the 

friar 
Dwelling within the hooded aconite j 
The maidens of the pale chrysanthemum, 
The royal lady of the proud and fair 
Japonica, and ev'n the merry mites 
That balance on the trumpet-flower's edge, 
Tippling their horns of honey. And with 

them. 
All the delightsome things of old romance — 
The royal violet, and Sappho's rose; 
The fleur-de-lis, the flower of chivalry ; 
The lotus, born of the eternities, 
Holding immortal ichor — hovered there. 
Hovered a moment, chiming in one strain. 
Then falling, failing, ever on the wing. 
Sought other skies. 

And I, upon the shore, 
Watched a far bark into a bank of mist, 
A dim blue bank built up along the sea ; 
The bark still sailing, hull and tapering spire 
A line of light, silverly sheathed about 



A FLOWER PIECE. 37 

With deepening vapors, slowly gliding on 
To denser shadow, slow and ever slower. 
Fainting and fading, till a phantom craft 
Was hid in sad recesses of the cloud, 
A vanished apparition — and above. 
Upon the pallor of a peaceful sky. 
Fair Hesper, like a flower, bloomed out in 
heaven. 



EVANESCENCE. 

What's the brightness of a brow? 

What's a mouth of pearls and corals ? 
Beauty vanishes like a vapor, 

Preach the men of musty morals ! 

Should the crowd then, ages since, 

Have shut their ears to singing Homer, 

Because the music fled as soon 
As fleets the violet's aroma ? 

Ah, for me, I thrill to see 

The bloom a velvet cheek discloses, 
Made of dust — I well believe it ! 

So are lilies, so are roses ! 



CAVETE, FELICES. 

The orchards all a-flutter with pink, 

Robins' twitter, and wild bees' humming. 

Break the song with a thrill, to think 

How sweet is life when summer is coming. 

The maple burning a scarlet leaf, 

The melting haze, and the south wind 
blowing, 

Charm the sting from the touch of grief. 
For sweet is life when summer is going. 

Oh, sweet, so sweet that the heart grows 
chill. 

Knowing the clouds will sweep the clover, 
The leaf will redden, the bird sing still, 

But for us, how soon it will all be over ! 



HERE AND THERE. 

O GLAD is youth with the brow of Helen, 
The mouth where Lalage's kisses cleave ; 

O fair is the lovely world to dwell in, 
Fair to dwell in, and fair to leave ! 

Blest, blest the years when a baby's laughter 

Fills with music the flying day. 
And passionate yearnings go trembling after 

The rosy flame in that fragile clay. 

Delicious life! But when death shall capture 
Soul and sense from its yielding years, 

Dearer that hour whose bursting rapture 
Gives us the freedom of the spheres! 



MOTHER MINE. 

When by the ruddy fire I spelled, 
In one old volume and another, 

Those ballads haunted by fair women, 
One of them always seemed my mother. 

In storied song she dwelt, where dwell 
Strange things and sweet of eld and eerie. 

The foam of Binnorie's bonny mill-dams, 
The bowing birks, the wells o' Wearie. 

All the Queen's Maries did she know. 

The eldritch knight, the sisters seven, 
The lad that lay upon the Lomonds 

And saw the perch play in Lochleven. 

« 
Burd Helen had those great gray eyes 

Their rays from shadowy lashes flinging; 
That smile the winsome bride of Yarrow 

Before her tears were set to singing. 



42 MOTHER MINE. 

That mouth was just the mouth that kissed 
Sir Cradocke under the green wildwood; 

Fair Rosamond was tall as she was, 
In those fixed fancies of my childhood. 

And when she sang — ah, when she sang! 

Birds are less sweet, and flutes not clearer — 
In ancient halls I saw the minstrel, 

And shapes long dead arose to hear her! 

Darlings of song I've heard since then. 
But no such voice as hers was, swelling 

Like bell-notes on the winds of morning, 
All angelhood about it dwelling. 

No more within those Tegions dim 

Of rich romance my thoughts would place 
her, 

Her life itself is such a poem 

She does not need old names to grace her. 

Long years have fled, but left her charm 
Smiling to see that years are fleeter. 

Those ballads are as sweet as ever, 
But she is infinitely sweeter. 



MOTHER MINE. 43 

For love, that shines through all her ways, 
Hinders the stealthy hours from duty, 

A soul divinely self-forgetful 

Has come to blossom in her beauty. 

While the low brow, the silver curl. 

The twilight glance, the perfect features. 

The rose upon a creamy pallor. 
Make her the loveliest of creatures. 

Now with the glow that, on the face 

Like moonlight on a flower, has found her. 

With the tone's thrill, a faint remoteness. 
Half like a halo hangs around her. 

Half like a halo? Nay, indeed, 
I never saw a picture painted — 

Such holy work the years have rendered — 
So like a woman that is sainted ! 



ON THE BUST OF CHARLOTTE 
CUSHMAN. 

A SECRET of the spheres, long hid 

In waiting silence, finds a form, 
Where elemental force has bid 

A great serenity out of storm. 
Here all imperial seraph sort. 
And bright ascendencies, have wrought 

And shaped themselves to perfect choice; 
And in full throbs of starry song, 
Wild music of the vast, along 
Whose verge the rolling echoes throng, 

These marble lips might find a voice. 

Oh, like some rare and wondrous shell 

Of shifting hues and lustrous dyes, 
That takes the sun in every cell 
With colors that eclipse the skies, 

The soul for which the sculptor sought, 
The soul that here the sculptor caught, 



BUST OF CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. 45 

And sealed in stone eternally! 
For never does the shell forget 
The tide with which its lips were wet, 
And far withdrawn it murmurs yet 

The hoary burden of the sea. 

And yet the hidden meaning here 

Interprets neither sky nor sea, 
Save as they round the earthly sphere 

With kinship of infinity. 

This nature holds the common sod's. 
Holds heaven and sunshine like a god's. 

Touched clay, and only soared the higher ! 
Soared like a flame that springs alone 
Into the vast and azure zone; 
And whoso holds the carven stone 

Carries an urn of sacred fire ! 



SARAH HILDRETH BUTLER. 

I. 

Do you remember, O you wondrous woman, 
In those dim regions where you wander now, — 
You, who were always something more than 

human. 
With the large light upon your lofty brow, — 
Do you remember all the hours we spent, 
All the gay mornings when the tremulous 

hazes 
Swathed the two silver rivers, and the heights 
Of pillared Arlington shone through their 

mazes ? 
Do you remember the delightful nights 
On the proud hill-top, while the city lay 
Sparkling below us with her swarming lights. 
We like the spirits of some other day, — 
Do you remember, you so far away ? 



SARAH HILDRETH BUTLER. 47 

II. 

What woods were those where, in the April 

weather, 
Dell under dell of darkness and of dew, 
Along the Rock Creek paths we rode together ! 
Over us swept the eagles, swept the blue ; 
Under us, in green gloom of ferns and foam, 
The brook glanced. Here the red-bud broke 

in blushes, • 
And like a press of moonbeams far abroad 
The dogwood lit the forest glades. The 

thrushes 
Answered our songs unseen. The horses trod 
In measure to our music, that glad noon. 
On beds of the wild heart's - ease velvet 

shod. 
Singing, we sped, and recked not in our tune . 
Of storm, eclipse, and the dark interlune ! 

III. 
Whether the ford splash round me now, or 

slowly 
I loiter up the great hill-side, to rest 
Where some old earthwork hides its melan- 
choly 



48 SARAH HILDRETH BUTLER. 

In dew-meshed cobwebs quivering on its 

breast, 
As the rank grass shakes with the wings that 

skim 
From coverts in the blossoming embrasure, 
Your conscious presence follows. I am stirred 
To see your shape upon the sunlit azure, 
To hear the ringing of the voice once heard 
In stories of those battailous days when you 
Stood with that Lion Heart, whose flaming 

word 

The shackle from the slave forever threw. 

While your pulse beat the strain his trumpets 

blew ! 

^iv. 

Again, I mark the mad scream of the break- 
ers 
Off Hatteras, and on the slant wet deck. 
Amid the wild waste of the whitening acres 
Of awful waters leaping for the wreck, 
Calm as upon your summer gallery 
I see you stitching on the silken pennon ; 
Firing the faint and waiting hearts of men 
That in transfiguring flash and smoke of can- 
non 



SARAH HILDRETH BUTLER. ' 49 

Had sprung to fate's embraces. And again, 
In the far South, where rolls the turbid tide 
Through the morass that plague has made 

its den. 
In veiling vapors creeping far and wide, 
I see the yellow death before you hide. 

V. 

Oh, fair these streets of palaces, with glory 
Of columns in long flying lines of light, 
With their high fields of sunshine, and the 

hoary 
Vast wastes of the illimitable night. 
Mirrored beneath in all the marshy meres, 
Whose fusing emerald and sapphire render 
Again, where beautiful Potomac sUdes, 
The phantom of the city's marbled splendor. 
Or in a dusky wash of starry tides ! 
Oh, fair these gardens we have haunted, too, 
Blown full of roses, where the air that rides 
Past cedars and magnolias drenched with dew 
Enchants the dark it dreams and dallies 

through ! 
4 



50 SARAH HILDRETH BUTLER. 

VI. 
And fair, o'er all, that shrine where, once, 

adoring, 
We saw the moonlight sheet the shining walls. 
We saw the inner lamplight softly pouring. 
Till the whole pile seemed lucent, and its 

halls 
Twin temples of our liberty ; the while, 
You gazed, — where high the airier lustre 

shimmered, 
A cloud upon the clouds light lay the dome, 
A star among the stars the tholus glim- 
mered, — 
Like some patrician lady of old Rome. 
Alas ! how many women died with you ! 
For, later, when you turned the page at home, 
Your face, your grace, your tears. Queen Con- 
stance drew. 
The serpent of old Nile your likeness grew ! 

VII. 

To-night, within that home, while all are sleep- 
ing, 
I sit alone, and watch the midnight wear. 



SARAH HILDRETH BUTLER. 5 I 

Is it the wind that round the house comes 

creeping ? 
Is it your footfall on the polished stair ? 
Strange visions in the mirrors gleam and go : 
Your smiles, your grief, your youth-renewing 

rapture 
In her whose beauty dazzled half a world, 
Here, where so late you lived and loved, I 

capture, 
Despite the dart that destiny has hurled. 
Oh, answer me : where are you, if not here ? 
Break the appalling silence round you furled ; 
Say if your great flame fell, or burns it clear 
To-night in some sublimer atmosphere ! 

VIII. 

Alas ! With you the whole earth somewhat 

faded, 
Turned from its path of sunshine, where the 

way 
With shadow of great mysteries was shaded \ 
Some bloom forsook the skies, some charm 

the day; 
Some secret lost the song I paused to hear. 



52 SARAH HILDRETH BUTLER. 

I seem to tread on graves since your swift 

going 
The trembling gates of loss wide open threw ; 
All things were shaken in your overthrowing, 
And age its frosty breath upon me blew. 
And still, though life is dear, and dear shall be 
Love, and the fresh delights that are not few, 
My heart cries to you, wandering far and free, 
O great, sweet ghost, do you remember me ? 



PEACE. 



Oh, that the bells in all those silent spires 
Would clash their clangor on the sleeping 



air ; 



Ring their wild music out with throbbing 
choirs, 
Ring peace in everywhere ! 

Oh, that the wave of sorrow surging o'er 

The red, red land would wash away its stain ; 
Drown out the angry fire from shore to shore, 
And give it peace again ! 

On last year's blossoming graves, with sum- 
mer calm. 
Loud in his happy tangle hums the bee ; 
Nature forgets her hurt, and finds her balmj 
Alas ! and why not we ? 



54 PEACE. 

Spirit of God that moved upon the face 
Of the waters, and bade ancient chaos 
cease, 
Shine, shine again o'er this tumultuous space. 
Thou that art Prince of Peace ! 



THE LONELY GRAV£:. 

Blood-red the roses blossom in the dell, 
The bosky place where once the battle fell j 
Tall have the grasses grown since then, and 

rank 
The ferns, fed with the ghastly dew they 

drank. 
Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet these roses of the 

South ; 

Sweet these rain-lilies blowing after drouth; 

Sweet the wild grape, whose bunches every- 
where 

Fling spice upon the lonesome summer air ; 

Sweet the great orange boughs and jasmine 
flowers 

In dawn and dusk through all the visiting 

hours 
That troop across the hidden grave's low 

swell 
Where the palmetto stands, a sentinel ! 



56 THE LONELY GRAVE. 

A lonely grave, — none care for it, none know 
His name who all these seasons sleeps below. 
Only the heedless hunter pauses there 
To sight some wing that quivers in the air, 
Nor feels the presence of an ancient pain 
That yearns about the unknown spot in vain. 
Only the noonday sunshine comes, the rain ; 
The golden moons above it wax and wane ; 
The wild deer couch beside it, and the snake 
Glitters and slips along beneath the brake ; 
While from the dagger-tree the bubbling song 
Of mocking-birds makes music all night long. 

But far on Northern hills a woman grows 
The sadder with each gust the south wind 

blows j 
A mother listens, and with eager ears 
The step long hushed in every footfall hears j 
And friends, flower-laden, in a martial rout 
Among the fortunate graves go in and out. 
Ah, if to-day one violet fell here. 
One bluebell dropped its heaven-holding tear. 
One homely door-stone blossom shed its 

breath, 



THE LONELY GRAVE. 57 

Less desolate with the despair of death, 
For all the song, the splendid glow and 

gleam. 
This lush-leaved covert of the dead would 

seem ! 

Yet, on this sole day of the waiting year, 
Since love with its dear tribute comes not 

near, 
Its shadow steals through the green under- 

gloom 
To scatter armfuls of pale myrtle bloom, — 
A dark shape crooning o'er the lonely grave, 
The wildly tuned thank-offering of the slave. 
For here, where strange boughs move and 

strange wings whir, 
He rests upon his arms who died for her. 
Brighter the tide that wet the soil returns, 
And in the blaze of the pomegranate burns ; 
Loftier the heavens climb from that low 

grave, 
Tenderer the air to which his breath he gave. 
Because he died, her children are her own j 
Her soul, she cries, to a white soul has 

grown j 



58 THE LONELY GRAVE. 

Because he sleeps beneath the alien sod, 
Her race in fuller sunlight answers God. 
Oh, sweet the bosky dell in sun and shower ; 
Sweet the low wind that creeps from flower 

to flower ! 
Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet these roses of the 

South, 
The breath of the rain-lilies' honeyed mouth ; 
Sweet the bird's song across the lonely grave, 
But sweeter still the blessings of the slave ! 



BETWEEN THE GRAVES. 
MAY 30. 

Where blood once quenched the camp-fire's 

brand, 
On every sod throughout the land 

The silver showers slip softly down ; 
On every sod some growing stem 

Lifts to the light a shining crown. 

For underneath her bending blue, 
With leaf and sunshine, moon and dew, 

Glad nature gilds the graveside gloom, 
Nor asks -what passions stirred the dust 

Through which her pulses spring to bloom. 

While from the gardens of the South, 

Like blessings blown from some warm mouth. 

The wooing wind steals all day long. 
Steals lingeringly from grave to grave 

With breath of blossom, breath of song. 



6o BETWEEN THE GRAVES. 

A common flag, breeze, showers, and flowers, 
Are weaving all these sunny hours. 

Where broken hearts and hopes are hid, 
And the great mother on each bed 

Lays it, a fragrant coverlid. 

You, who with garlands go about, 
As the tree-tilting bird pours out 

O'er either mound his singing bliss. 
Oh, kind as birds and breezes, leave 

A flower on that grave, and on this ! 

For, lo, the eternal truce of death 
Was called upon the passing breath. 

And all the phantom hates, that shed 
Their shadows round us as they stalked. 

Have no remembrance with the dead ! 



THE GRANADAN GIRL'S SONG. 

All day the lime blows in the sun, 
All day the silver aspens quiver, 
All day along the far blue plain 
Winds serpent-like the golden river. 

From clustering flower and myrtle bower 

Soft sounds arise forever, 
From gleaming tower with crescent dower 
Our banner floats forever! 

Its purple bloom the grape puts on. 
Pulping to this compelling summer. 
And heavy dews shake through the globes 
Scarce stirred by some bright-winged new- 
comer j 
On yon brown hill, where all is still. 

Where lightly rides the muleteer, 
With jangling bells, whose burden swells 
Till shaft and arch rise fine and clear. 



62 THE GRANADAN GIRUS SONG. 

As one by one the shadows creep 

Back to their lairs in hilly hollows, 
A broader radiance issues forth, 

And on their track in silence follows. 
A fuller air swims everywhere, 

A freer murmur shakes the bough, 
A thousand fires surprise the spires, 
And all the city wakes below ! 

What morn shall rise, what cursed morn. 

To find this bright pomp all surrendered. 
These palaces an empty shell, 
This vigor listless ruin rendered ; 
While every sprite of its delight 

Mocks fickle echoes through the court. 
And in our place a sculptured trace 
Saddens some stranger's careless sport ? 

Oh, gay with all the stately stir, 

And bending to your silken flowing. 
One day, my banner-poles, ye creak 

Naked beneath the high winds blowing ! 
One day ye fall across the wall 

And moulder in the moat's green bosom, 



THE GRANADAN GIRL'S SONG. 63 

While in the cleft the wild tree left 
Bursts into spikes of cruel blossom ! 

Ah, never dawn that day for me ! 

O Fate, its fierce foreboding banish ! 
When all our hosts, like pallid ghosts 
Blown on by morning, melt and vanish ! 
Oh, in the fires of their desires 

Consume the toil of those invaders ! 
And let the brand divide the hand 
That grasps the hilt of the Crusaders ! 

Yet idle words in such a scene ! 

Yon pearly mists on high careering ; 
The Moorish cavaliers who fleet 

With hawk and hound and distant cheering j 
The dipping sail puffed to the gale. 
The prow that spurns the billow's fawn- 
ing, — 
How can they fade to dimmer shade. 
And how this day desert its dawning ? 

Forget to float, thou pearly rack ! 
Ye riders, bronze your airy motion ! 



64 THE GRANADAN GIRDS SONG. 

Still skim the seas, so snowy craft, 
Forever sail to meet the ocean ! 
There bid the tide refuse to slide. 

Glassing, below, thy drooping pinion, 
Forever cease its wild caprice, 

Fallen at the feet of our dominion ! 



THE BLUE. 

Lads of our land, the flower of youth, 
Loitering the vext Havana through, 

Shot down like dogs, because, forsooth. 
The ribbon at their throats is blue ! 
The Spaniard will not brook the blue I 

And not a regent of our power 

Hurls its hot lightnings, swift and true! 
No navies make the place, this hour, 

A blot upon the ocean's blue ! 

The Spaniard will not brook the blue! 

O war-ships, in the tropic seas, 
Idling with each impatient crew. 

Strike the bright flag that flouts the breeze. 
And from its splendor tear the blue ! 
The Spaniard will not brook the blue ! 
5 



66 THE BLUE, 

Ye spirits, in your shining crowds, 

That on this sphere God's bidding do. 

Call the four winds, and call the clouds, 
And out of heaven wash the blue ! 
The Spaniard will not brook the blue 1 



OUR NEIGHBOR. 

Old neighbor, for how many a year 
The same horizon, stretching here. 
Has held us in its happy bound 
From Rivermouth to Ipswich Sound! 
How many a wave-washed day we Ve seen 
Above that low horizon lean, 
And marked within the Merrimack 
The self-same sunset reddening back, 
Or in the Powow's shining stream, 
That silent river of a dream! 

Where Craneneck o'er the woody gloom 
Lifts her steep mile of apple-bloom; 
Where Salisbury Sands, in yellow length, 
With the great breaker measures strength; 
Where Artichoke in shadow slides. 
The lily on her painted tides, — 
There 's naught in the enchanted view 
That does not seem a part of you; 



68 OUR NEIGHBOR. 

Your legends hang on every hill, 
Your songs have made it dearer still. 

Yours is the river-road; and yours 
Are all the mighty meadow floors 
Where the long Hampton levels lie 
Alone between the sea and sky. 
Fresher in Follymill shall blow 
The Mayflowers, that you loved them so; 
Prouder Deer Island's ancient pines 
Toss to their measure in your lines; 
And purpler gleam old Appledore, 
Because your foot has trod her shore. 

Still shall the great Cape wade to meet 

The storms that fawn about her feet, 

The summer evening linger late 

In many-rivered Stackyard Gate, 

When we, when all your people here. 

Have fled. But like the atmosphere, 

You still the region shall surround, 

The spirit of the sacred ground. 

Though you have risen, as mounts the star, 

Into horizons vaster far ! 



MAYFLOWERS. 

I FANCY in my buried race 
Some Puritan, far-off and dim, 

Who left in me no other trace 

Than love of what was dear to him. 

Through richer veins his blood has flowed, 
But every spring its pulse I feel 

When, in the ruts of Seabrook road. 
By the first Mayflower's sod I kneel. 

For scarcely could this wild perfume 
Enrapture so my soul and sense. 

If, quick with that ethereal bloom, 
Thrilled not anew the influence 

When all his spirit's icy death — 

The first long winter's chill despair — 

Was blown on by this tender breath, 
And vanished in immortal air. 



DAYS OF REST. 

Still Sundays, rising o'er the world, 

Have never failed to bring their calm, 
While, from their tranquil wings unfurled, 

On the tired heart distilling balm. 
A purer air bathes all the fields, 

A purer gold the generous sky ; 
The land a hallowed silence yields, 

All things in .mute, glad worship lie, — 
All save where careless innocence 

In the great Presence sports and plays, 
A wild bird whistles, or the wind 

Tosses the light snow from the sprays. 

For life renews itself each week, 

Each Sunday seems to crown the year; 

The fair earth rounds as fresh a cheek 
As though just made another sphere. 

The shadowy film that sometimes breathes 
Between our thought and Heaven disparts, 



DAYS OF REST. 7 1 

The quiet hour so brightly wreathes 
Its solemn peace about our hearts. 

And Nature, whether sun or shower 
Caprices with her soaring days, 

Rests conscious, in some happy sense. 
Of the wide smile that lights her ways. 



MAGDALEN. 

If any woman of us all, 

If any woman of the street, 
Before the Lord should pause and fall, 

And with her long hair wipe his feet; 

He, whom with yearning hearts we love, 
And fain would see with human eyes 

Around our living pathway move, 
And underneath our daily skies ; 

The Maker of the heavens and earth. 
The Lord of life, the Lord of death. 

In whom the universe had birth 

But breathing of our breath one breath ! 

If any woman of the street 

Should kneel, and with the lifted mesh 
Of her long tresses wipe his feet. 

And with her kisses kiss their flesh, — 



MAGDALEN. 73 

How round that woman would we throng ! 

How willingly would clasp her hands, 
Fresh from that touch divine, and long 

To gather up the twice-blest strands ! 

How eagerly with her would change 

Our trivial innocence, nor heed 
Her shameful memories and strange. 

Could we but also claim that deed ! 



IN THE CARAVAN. 

When we see our life like a desert hard to 
cross, 
Where the great heats are beating beneath 
a cruel beam, 
And only in mirage the plumy palm-trees toss, 
Purple shadows tremble, cooling waters 
gleam ; 

When the sand-storm threatens, and bleached 
bones mark the way 
And the long levels burn against the burn- 
ing sky, 
And we weary for a shelter, and hate the 
blinding day, — 
Hate the fierce lights, the scorching airs, 
and long to die; 

When we picture only the sudden fall of night 
Deep and dark and azure through distances 
of stars, 



IN THE CARAVAN. 75 

Think of dusky winds that whisper up its 
height 
Like winged spirits fanning against their 
prison-bars j 

And, when thus we sigh and languish, a cry- 
resounds, and soon, 
Across the sea of sand some foreland rears 
its head. 
Where tamarisk thickets drop their dew in 
the mid-noon, — 
Then life rebubbles in our veins as it might 
stir the dead! 

Oh, surely so, when hard the way before and 
long behind, 
One everlasting refuge always rises close at 
hand, 
Where the living fountains flow, and in whose 
rest we find 
The Shadow of a Great Rock in a weary 
land! 



WITNESSES. 

Whenever my heart is heavy, 

And life seems sad as death, 
A subtle and marvelous mockery 

Of all who draw their breath, 
And I weary of throned injustice, 

The rumor of outrage and wrong. 
And I doubt if God rules above us, 

And I cry, O Lord, how long, 
How long shall sorrow and evil 

Their forces around them draw ! 
Is there no power in thy right hand, 

Is there no life in thy law? 

Then at last the blazing brightness 
Of day forsakes its height. 

Slips like a splendid curtain 

From the awful and infinite night; 

And out of the depths of distance, 
The gulfs of purple space. 



WITNESSES. jy 

The stars steal, slow and silent, 
Each in the ancient place, — 

Each in armor shining, 

The hosts of heaven arrayed. 

And wheeling through the midnight 
As they did when the world was made. 

And I lean out among the shadows 

Cast by that far white gleam, 
And I tremble at the murmur 

Of one mote in the mighty beam, 
As the everlasting squadrons 

Their fated influence shed, 
While the vast meridians sparkle 

With the glory of their tread. 
That constellated glory 

The primal morning saw. 
And I know God moves to his purpose, 

And still there is life in his law! 



ALIVE. 

When the wild wake-robin starts in the 
wood 
At the joy of the earth who escapes her 
bars, 
And the birches flutter in breezy mood, 
And the quick brooks run and sing in the sun 
To some strain of the song of the morn- 
ing-stars ; 

When the gay rhodoras throng the swamp, 

Like a settling cloud of winged things 
All a-quiver in purple pomp, 
And their green and gold the ferns unfold 
To the far-heard murmur of hastening 
springs ; 

When trilliums nod, and the columbines 
Spread like flames through the forest 
gloom ; 



ALIVE. 79 

When in open field the white-weed shines, 
And the birds and bees in the apple-trees 
Dart through skies of blue and bloom ; 

When the whole bright orb is flashing along, 

With her cloudy gossamers round her 

curled, 

A thing of blossom and leaf and song, — 

Still, I cry, is He far as the farthest star. 

Or living and pulsing across his world? 



A CHRISTMAS THOUGHT. 

In the beginning, when the vast 
Lay in a void of turbid night, 

A mighty music filled the deeps, — 

Let there be light: and there was light. 

When night and shadow ruled again, 
And only dim hill-altars shone 

Or swart Astarte's flamed and fell. 

Entreating light, where light was none. 

Once more that mighty mandate cleft 
The day from dark, and night from morn. 

While all the hungering deeps replied,— 
Let there be light : and Christ was born ! 



CANDLEMAS. 

Like some immortal heathen thing, 
All fresh with bloom, with odor sweet, 
With brook and bird and breeze in tune, 
The beautiful bright earth of June 
Moves to the fullness of her noon, 
While serving sunbeams round her fling 
The purple violets as they fleet. 

But when the winter's feathery rime 
Plumes every leaf and every spray. 
And the deep skies about her close. 
With morning's saffron, evening's rose. 
Sparkling along her stainless snows, 
So some great spirit, done with time, 
Takes into space its white-winged way. 
6 



BLIND. 

He knows the summer comes, for now 
The pleasant south wind seeks his brow; 
He hears the twitter and the song 
Of building birds the whole day long. 
For him the violet breathes and blows ; 
The pansy's perfume comes and goes ; 
And hint of honeysuckles' bloom 
For him forever in the gloom. 

But not for him the dewy morn 
Hangs heaven upon the idle thorn ; 
But not for him the splendid day 
Blazons the azure on its wayj 
And not for him the awful night 
Wings upward her eternal flight. 

But to be blind, and be like him, 
When far away these shadows swim, 
While God's bright lilies to and fro 
Shake softly all their gold and snow, 



BLIND. 83 

And first he satisfies his sight 

At the great fountain of the light, 

And sees in glory and alone 

The emerald rainbow round the throne ! 



PALMISTRY. 

A LITTLE hand, a fair soft hand, 
Dimpled and sweet to kiss : 

No sculptor ever carved from stone 
A lovelier hand than this. 

A hand as idle and as white 
As lilies on their stems ; 

Dazzling with rosy finger-tips, 
Dazzling with crusted gems. 

Another hand, — a tired old hand, 
Written with many lines ; 

A faithful, weary hand, whereon 
The pearl of great price shines ! 

For folded, as the wing6d fly 

Sleeps in the chrysalis. 
Within this little palm I see 

That lovelier hand than this I 



LULLABY. 

I. 

Rest, little one, without a fear. 

Without a fear; for far away 
The great sea breaks upon the shore 

From day to dark, from dark to day; 
And all the thunders of its roar. 
Through silence filtered o'er and o'er, 
In murmurous music hush thine ear ! 
In murmurous music hush thine ear! 

II. 

Droop, like the petals of a rose, 

A drooping rose, dear eyelids, droop 
Above the honeydew of dreams j 

While happy slumbers round thee stoop 
And weave their wings across the gleams 
Where life's too vivid tumult streams. 
Close, softly close, sweet eyelids, close i 
Close, softly close, sweet eyelids, close! 



FIRST AND LAST. 

Just come from heaven, how bright and fair 
The soft locks of the baby's hair, 
As if the unshut gates still shed 
The shining halo round his head ! 

Just entering heaven, what sacred snows 
Upon the old man's brow repose ! 
For there the opening gates have strewn 
The glory from the great white throne. 



SECOND-SIGHT. 

Under the apple bough she sits, 
The sunshine in her flying hair ; 

Dimpling and laughing through the fall 
Of blushing flakes about her there. 

And as I gaze I picture me, 
Beside this darling of our souls, 

Two innocents with softer locks. 
Half ringlets and half aureoles. 

They frolic with her in the grass; 

They listen to the bird, the bee ; 
They catch the petals as they float; 

They babble music in their glee. 

They teach the little earthling how 
The cherubs play in hallowed courts, 

With some great gracious angel near, 
And smiling on them at their sports. 



88 SECOND-SIGHT. 

Oh, do I really look upon 

Those lost delights of vanished years, 
Or do I only dream them there. 

Because I see her through my tears? 



UNDER THE BREATH. 

Since tears will never bring thee back, 

Why should I weep ? 
I would not any moan of mine 

Should break thy sleep. 

Sleep on, my baby ! By thy side 

I will not stir 
More than the bird that broods and dreams 

Deep in the fir, — 

The bird that dreams of fluttering joy 

Full soon her own, 
Nor sees the shadow at her feet 

Whose joy has flown 1 



UNDER THE SNOW-DRIFTS. 

Under the snow-drifts the blossoms are sleep- 
ing 
Dreaming their dreams of sunshine and 
June; 
Down in the hush of their quiet they 're keep- 
ing 
Trills from the throstle's wild summer-sung 
tune. 

Under the snow-drifts what blossoms are 
sleeping, 
Never to waken with sunshine or June ! 
Do they dream dreams of the eyes that are 
weeping, 
Under the snow-drifts, by midnight and 
noon ? 



SONG. 

When the great breezes call 

From east to west, 
And through the turfy wall 

Sing him to restj 
While lightly snow-flakes fall 

Upon his breast, 
Till the low bed be hid 
By their soft coverlid, 

So fair and frore, — 

Could love of mine do more ? 

When flower and leaf and light 

The green sod bless ; 
When, out of heaven's height, 

The sunbeams press 
Around him the delight 

Of their caress. 
And from the hemlock hear, 
Where little nests lie near, 

The bird-songs pour, — 

Could love of mine do more? 



OAK HILL. 

There are roses of passionate perfume 
In the gardens under the hill, 

Red-lipped and rich with the honey. 
That the brown bee sips at will. 

Lightly their breath is blowing 
Wherever the west wind flies, 

A" part of the breathing rapture 
Of laughter and kisses and sighs. 

But here, where the silence is perfect 

As in undiscovered lands. 
The lilies are crowding like sainted souls. 

With their gold harps in their hands. 

And I think if the Lord, at cool of day, 
Should again with his servants tread. 

It is here that his feet would linger, — 
In this Garden of the Deadl 



LOSS AND GAIN. 

When a soul that shines both strong and 
sweet 

From fearless eyes, and makes the world com- 
plete, 

Vanishes, like foam upon the shore, 

Is the earth more desert than before? 

Nay! that soul on death its beauty lays. 
Casts a splendor down the sunless ways; 
Nay! the sky burns bluer, and the night 
Soars to follow it a hallowed height! 

VOL. 3, p. iii. 



AN OLD SONG. 

An old song, an old song! But the new are 
not so sweet, — 
Sweet though they be with honeyed words, 
and sweet with fancies fair. 
With thrills of tune in silver troop of an- 
swering echoes fleet, 
With tender longings slumberous upon en- 
chanted air. 

An old song ! But across its verse what view- 
less voices sing! 
Through all its simple burden what human 
pulses stir! 
More intimate with grief and joy than any 
precious thing 
That the years have wrapped away in frank- 
incense and myrrh ! 

Lovers have sung it, summer nights, when 
earth itself seemed heaven j 



AN OLD SONG. 95 

Sailors far off on lonely seas have given it 
to the gale; 
Mothers have hushed its measure on the quiet 
edge of even, 
While soft as falling rose-leaves dear eye- 
lids dropped their veil. 

Long since the sailor made his grave between 
two rolling waves, 
The lovers and their love are naught, 
mother and child are dustj 
But to-night some maiden lilts it, to-night its 
sounding staves 
Are blowing from the stroller's lips on this 
balmy blossom-gust. 

A part of life, its music flows as the blood 
flows in the vein; 
Laughter ripples through it, tears make its 
charm complete ; 
For the heart of all the ages beats still 
through this old strain, — 
An old song, an old song, but the new are 
not so sweet ! 



THE BIRTHDAY. 



M. L. B. 



Into this world, with April, you 
Were ushered by the birds, the dew 
On opening violets, and the blue 
Of skies just washed from weary stain 
With shower on shower of happy rain; 
By earthy scent of furrows new, 
By sudden rainbows on the wing, 
And each dear thing of early spring. 

Wild hyacinths are in the grass, 
That grow more purple as you pass; 
And pale above the answering glass 
They find in many a shadowy brook 
The daffodils bend down and look. 
See the chance cloud, a snowy mass, 
And see the restless bluebird fly 
Deep in the high and painted sky. 



THE BIRTHDAY. 97 

Oh, gay the day that April brings, 
When all about the wide air rings 
With melody of whistling wings. 
With rustling waters, and the sigh 
Of odorous branches far and nigh, 
Where the bee murmurs as he clings. 
While up and down the glad winds strew 
The rosy snow of apple blow! 

Ah, if on some delicious day, 
Dropped out of heaven and into May, 
You first had wandered down this way. 
When mellow sunbeams wove their snare 
Through azure vapors everywhere, 
And all fhe land in languor lay. 
It had not seemed a day so meet. 
So shy and fleet, so fresh and sweet ! 
7 



MARION. 

Two hundred years ago, they say, 

On pleasant Topsfield's wind-swept hill, 

Where now your honeyed gardens glow, 
Nightly the witches worked their will. 

Ah, what an hour! The red moon tipped 
Her horns athwart the tide, and sent 

Vague gleams that o'er the forest glades 
Like flaming phantoms came and went. 

And madly tossed the boughs, to catch 
The stars' white fires in eager play ; 

And all the wizard rout streamed up. 
Flared in the beam, and streamed away. 

Then folk, belated in the wood, 

Shivered to see, as past they whirled. 

The hurtling glance of baleful eyes. 
The yellow tress that wild winds curled. 



MARION. 99 

For these could blight the world in flower, 
Could shake strange sorrows out of fate j 

Could burn with frost, or burn with fire. 
And curdle heart's love into hate. 

They were the witches of Witch Hill, 
Famed far and near, a haunting crewj 

And yet, I think, in all the troop 
Was not so great a witch as you ! 

You, who came hither, from the shore 
Where a queen's palace-gardens still 

Blow blossom-breath far out to sea, 
To your own gardens on the hill; 

You, who, with shadowy eyes, wherein 
The evening star to splendor starts, 

With tones that ripple like the brooks. 
Found the swift way to all our hearts j 

You, who still wear a child's bright brow, 
But for all things of sore and sad 

Out of an aching pity pour 
Largess of love to make them glad; 



100 MARION. 

You, who shall help the world to flower, 
Strange sorrows heal with stranger skill, 

And bring new magic round you here. 
My little witch of old Witch Hill ! 



THE NUN AND HARP. 

What memory fired her pallid face, 

What passion stirred her blood, 
What tide of sorrow and desire 

Poured its forgotten flood 
Upon a heart that ceased to beat, 
Long since, with thought that life was sweet 
When nights were rich with vernal dusk, 
And the rose burst its bud? 

Had not the western glory then 
Stolen through the latticed room. 

Her funeral raiment would have shed 
A more heart-breaking gloom; 

Had not a dimpled convent-maid 

Hung in the door-way, half afraid, 

And left the melancholy place 
Bright with her blush and bloom! 

Beside the gilded harp she stood. 
And through the singing strings 



102 THE NUN AND HARP. 

Wound those wan hands of folded prayer 

In murmurous preludings. 
Then, like a voice, the harp rang high 
Its melody, as climb the sky, 
Melting against the melting blue, 

Some bird's vibrating wings. 

Ah why, of all the songs that grow 

Forever tenderer, 
Chose she that passionate refrain 

Where lovers 'mid the stir 
Of wassailers that round them pass 
Hide their sweet secret? Now, alas, 
In her nun's habit, coifed and veiled, 

What meant that song to her ! 

Slowly the western ray forsook 

The statue in its shrine ; 
A sense of tears thrilled all the air 

Along that purpling line. 
Earth seemed a place of graves that rang 
To hollow footsteps, while she sang, 
"Drink to me only with thine eyes. 

And I will pledge with mine!" 



TWO. 

Just two lilies on a stem, — 

Easily you had not told 
Which the sweeter was of them : 

This, wide heart of virgin gold; 

That, half shut, fold over fold. 

Just two maidens, such as those 
Once the sons of God found fair: 

This, a blush that comes and goes, 
Caught upon the dimples' snare; 
That, half hid in dropping hair. 

Flesh delicious as a peach; 

Voice like bird-song on the wing; 
Youth's soft glamour over each : 

But the soul, — ah, there 's the sting ! 

Who of that said anything? 



GODSPEED. 

The great ship spreads her wings, her plumes 
are flying; 
Music sweeps down the deck, and chiming 
laughter ; 
She climbs the green crest of the shining 
surges, 
The shadow of the chasing surge climbs 
after. 

Ah, never overtake her, mighty shadow! 

Spirits of fire and air, attend upon her; 
In cloud by day and fire by night possess 
her; 

Sacred her charge, and sacred be her honor ! 

Far in the mid-waste of the weltering waters, 
Furrowed with dark and day and dark re- 
turning, 



GODSPEED. 105 

Fly, fly, good ship, easting with every dawn- 
ing. 
To hail your beacon in the billows burning ! 

And though you toss where never breath of 
blossom 
Blows, nor sweeps round the mast the swift 
sea swallow. 
Yet with you still, all storm, all space, defy- 
ing, 
On her untiring wing my love shall follow ! 



LONGING. 

O BRIGHT wings, flashing round me in your 

flight 
Within the hollow heaven's shining height, 
A sparkling sapphire and a ruby's blaze, 
The living light of these long Southern days ; 
Redbirds, that on the dark sprays cling and 

swing 
As if pomegranate flowers themselves took 

wing; 
Soft turtle-doves, that murmur in the shade 
The fig-tree on the summer sward has laid; 
O mocking-birds, that on the topmost bough 
Wake all the world with music, — gladly now 
To all your song would I be deaf, and blind 
To all your beauty, could I only mind 
Among my orchard's cloud of apple blooms. 
Deep in the heart of all their dewy glooms. 
The robin's first soft flute-note when the light 
Begins to stir in the dark nest of night! 



A SIGH. 

It was nothing but a rose I gave her, — 

Nothing but a rose 
Any wind might rob of half its savor, 

Any wind that blows. 

When she took it from my trembling fingers 

With a hand as chill, — 
Ah, the flying touch upon them lingers. 

Stays, and thrills them still ! 

Withered, faded, pressed between the pages, 

Crumpled fold on fold, — 
Once it lay upon her breast, and ages 

Can not make it old! 



A WRECK. 

They walked along the murmuring shore: 
High was the tide, and near and wide 
In flashing hints of iris tints 

Each wave its splendid foam-wreath bore. 

Faint in the purple east, and far, 

One bending sail swelled on the gale; 
The tide was full, but white as wool 

The breakers combed beyond the bar. 

They saw no breakers' angry bale 
Lift into sight its deathly light; 
They only saw the laughing flaw, 

And all their hope was on the sail. 

They walked again beside the shore : 

The tide was down, the sands were brown, 
And fleck on fleck of one great wreck 

Strewed all its barren beauty o'er. 



IN SUMMER NIGHTS. 

I. MUSIC IN THE NIGHT. 

When stars pursue their solemn flight, 

Oft in the middle of the night, 

A strain of music visits me, 

Hushed in a moment silverly, — 

Such rich and rapturous strains as make 

The very soul of silence ache 

With longing for the melody. 

Or lovers in the distant dusk 
Of summer gardens, sweet as musk, 
Pouring the blissful burden out, 
The breaking joy, the dying doubt; 
Or revelers, all flown with wine, 
And in a madness half divine, 
Beating the broken tune about. 

Or else the rude and rolling notes 

That leave some strolling sailors' throats, 



no IN SUMMER NIGHTS. 

Hoarse with the salt sprays, it may be, 
Of many a mile of rushing sea; 
Or some high-minded dreamer strays 
Late through the solitary ways, 
. Nor heeds the listening night, nor me. 

Or how or whence those tones be heard, 
Hearing, the slumbering soul is stirred. 
As when a swiftly passing light 
Startles the shadows into flight; 
While one remembrance suddenly 
Thrills through the melting melody, — 
A strain of music in the night. 

Out of the darkness bursts the song, 
Into the darkness moves along : 
Only a chord of memory jars, 
Only an old wound burns its scars, 
As the wild sweetness of the strain 
Smites the heart with passionate pain, 
And vanishes among the stars. 



IN SUMMER NIGHTS. 1 1 1 

II. BOAT SONG. 

Oh, fair the flight, at dead of night. 
When, up the immeasurable height. 
The thin cloud wanders with the breeze 
That shakes the lustre from the star. 
That stoops and crisps the darkling seas, 
And drives the daring keel afar 
Where loneliness and silence are! 
To cleave the crested wave, and mark 
Drowned in its depth the shattered spark j 
On airy swells to soar, and rise 
Where nothing but the foam bell flies \ 
O'er freest tracts of wild delight, 
Oh, fair the flight, at dead of night 



I 



III. INTERMEZZO. 

Sheer below us, as we stand to-night 
Leaning on the balustrade, the river 

Flows in such still darkness that the stars. 
Painted on its bosom, scarcely quiver. 



^ 



Far above us, through the violet depths. 
All those silent stars sweep in their places; 



112 IN SUMMER NIGHTS. 

What a solemn, shining flight they soar, 
From court to court of the eternal spaces ! 

Oh, how beautiful you are, my love ! 

How your heart bounds with its tender 
yearning ! 
How upon your lips, your cheeks, your eyes. 
The fragrant flame of your full life is burn- 
ing I 

Yet alas, alas, the flame shall fall, 

Love and lover shall be dust and ashes. 

While those stars move mercilessly on. 
And the tide still paints their awful flashes ! 



IV. WINDS FROM SEA. 

Softly the winds come singing in from sea. 
Singing to nothing but the moon and me, — 

The moon, half risen, lingering and late ; 
From lands long leagues away come singing 
free. 
From lands where summer holds her shin- 
ing state. 



IN SUMMER NIGHTS. 1 13 

Lately on snowy orange stems they slept, 
Among a palm-tree's billowy branches crept, 

And rustled in a red pomegranate bough; 
Then, rich with heavy spices, shoreward swept, 

And brought their balms to fan my eager 
brow. 

O midnight winds, that through such splen- 
dor fly, — 
The hollow of a sapphire in the sky. 

The paved work of a sapphire on the sea, — 
How soon your warm deliciousness might die 
Could you but stay and swell one sail for 
me! 



V. NIGHT IN TEXAS. 

The lonely interspace of night ! 

The lampless dome awaits the rain; 
No footfall stirs the unruffled calm 

Through San Antonio's weird domain. 
The summer city, breathing balm. 

Muffled in musky branch and bloom, 

Sleeps hushed within the haunted gloom. 
8 



114 IN SUMMER NIGHTS. 

The jasmines, in their deep dream life, 
Across the open window-place 

Roll their luxurious air, and slow, 
Stealing along from space to space. 

Wafts of an arch enchantment blow 
Where the great white magnolias lift 
Their cups and let the sweetness drift. 

Lonely, and mute, and masked, and sweet. 
When, hear ! A sigh, a low reply, 

Another, and another still, 

A flute-note, then a rapturous cry. 

And all abroad in answering trill, 
As if boughs swung in breezy glee, 
The mocking-birds are whistling free. 

Ah, what an ecstasy of tune 

Breaks the dead shadow of the night ! 
Gush after gush its warble wells. 

Song over song it scales the height. 
Broad-breasted on the silvery swells j 

Then ceases in a sudden pride. 

With the full echo far and wide. 



IN SUMMER NIGHTS. 1 1 5 

Hark ! 't is the blackbird's pipe begins ; 

Nay, 't is the plover's airy note : 
Ah, listen ! 't is an ancient strain 

Snatched from a wandering harper's throat \ 
And now the jocund burst again. 

Oh, blest the day's intensest light, 

Crowned by this revelry of night! 



VI. LOVERS. 

Midnight and June ! 

The yellow phantom of a moon 

Far out at sea, 

Dark branches arching overhead, 

The river flowing in the gloom. 

And heavy scents of leaf and bloom, 

Making it just a joy to be ! 

And in the dew. 

Beneath the branches bending too. 

Two faces bent, — 

Bent in a swift and daring dream, 

An ecstasy of trembling bliss, 

And sealed together in a kiss, — 

And the night waiting passion-spent. 



Il6 IN SUMMER NIGHTS, 

For this the day 

Swooned from its fiery skies awayj 

For this the night 

Built up its stars and silences ; 

For this the royal summer came, 

Wrapped in her robes of balmy flame, 

This moment pausing on its flight ! 

Midnight and June ! 

A dreaming bird repeats his tune. — 

The sea replies j 

Perfume and hush and shadow still, 

But nothing as it was before, 

Subtly and strangely all made o'er 

With love's unsealing of the eyes ! 



VII. UNDER THE WINDOW. 

The hours that bear thy beauty prize 
Star after star sinks numbering ; 

The laden wind at thy lattice sighs 
To find thee slumbering, slumbering ! 



IN SUMMER NIGHTS. 11/ 

Ah, wantonly why waste these hours 
That love would fain be borrowing ? 

Soon youth and joy must fall like flowers, 
And leave thee sorrowing, sorrowing ! 

Ye fleeting hours, ye sacred skies, 
Free airs around her hovering. 

Oh, open me the envied eyes 

Your spells are covering, covering ! ^ 

Or, only, while the dew's soft showers 

Shake slowly into glistening. 
Let her, O magic midnight hours. 

In dreams be listening, listening ! 



VIII. IN THE GARDEN. 

Thy beauty, like a star, 

Whose life is light. 
Shines on me from afar 

And on the night. 

Each midnight blossom bends 
With sweetest weight, 



Il8 IN SUMMER NIGHTS. 

And to thy casement sends 
Its fragrant freight. 

Each air that faintly curls 

About thy nest, 
Its daring pinion furls 

Within thy breast. 

The night is spread for thee, 

Far fields and wide \ 
And the dark earth's mystery 

Is magnified. 

For thee the garden waits, 

The hours delay; 
The fountains toss their jets 

Of shimmering spray. 

Then, leave thy dim delight 

In dreams above ; 
Come forth, and crown the night. 

With her I love ! 



IN SUMMER NIGHTS. 1 1 9 

IX. BALLAD. 

In the summer even 

While yet the dew was hoar, 
I went plucking purple pansies, 

Till my love should come to shore; 
The fishing lights their dances 

Were keeping out at sea, 
And come, I sung, my true love ! 

Come hasten home to me ! 

But the sea, it fell a-moaning. 

And the white gulls rocked thereon; 
And the young moon dropped from heaven, 

And the lights hid one by one. 
All silently their glances 

Slipped down the cruel sea, 
And wait ! cried the night and wind and 
storm, — 

Wait, till I come to thee! 



120 IN SUMMER NIGHTS. 

X. FANTASIA. 

We 're all alone, we 're all alone ! 
The moon and stars are dead and gone j 
The night 's at deep, the wind asleep, 
And thou and I are all alone ! 

What care have we though life there be? 
Tumult and life are not for me ! 
Silence and sleep about us creep ; 
Tumult and life are not for thee! 

How late it is since such as this 
Had topped the height of breathing bliss! 
And now we keep an iron sleep, — 
In that grave thou, and I in this ! 



XI. SONG. 

Through lonely summers, where the roses 
blow 
Unsought, and shed their tangled sweets, 
I sit and harkj or in the starry dark. 

Or when the night-rain on the hill-side 
beats. 



IN SUMMER NIGHTS. 121 

Alone ! But when the eternal summers flow 
And refluent drown in song all moan, 

Thy soul shall waste for its delight, and 
haste. 
Searching, — and I shall be no more alone ! 



XII. LISTENING. 

Her white hand flashes on the strings, 
Sweeping a swift and silver chord. 

And wild and strong the great harp rings 
Its throng of throbbing tones abroad; 

Music and moonlight make a bloom 

Throughout the rich and sombre room. 

Oh, sweet the long and shivering swells. 
And sweeter still the lingering flow, 

Delicious as remembered bells 
Dying in distance long ago. 

When evening winds from heaven were blown. 

And the heart yearned for things unknown ! 

Across the leafy window-place 

Peace seals the stainless sapphire deep; 



122 IN SUMMER NIGHTS. 

One sentry star on outer space 

His quenchless lamp lifts, half asleep; 
Peace broods where falling waters flow, 
Peace where the heavy roses blow. 

And on the windless atmosphere 
Wait all the fragrances of June; 

The summer night is hushed to hear 
The passion of the ancient tune! 

Then why these sudden tears that start, 

And why this pierced and aching heart? 

Ah, listen ! We and all our pain 
Are mortal, and divine the song! 

Idly our topmost height we gain : 
It spurns that height, and far along 

Seeks in the heavens its splendid mark. 

And we fall backward on the dark! 



XIII. NOCTURNE. 

In the soft, starless summer dark 
No murmur swims along the air; 

Wrapped in her dim and dusky veil. 
Earth seems to slumber everywhere. 



IN SUMMER NIGHTS, 1 23 

All the Still dews in hiding lie, 

With unrobbed richness droops the rose ; 
Nor up nor down the garden walks 

A slight or stealthy zephyr blows. 

Midnight and hush, profoundest peace; 

The falling leaf forgets to float; 
When with one deep and mighty throb 

Along the headland strikes the rote ! — 

Strikes with the awful undertone 

Of some great storm's tremendous blast, 

That far through white mid-seas plows on 
To scream around a broken mast! 

But here the swell shall heave to shore 

A muffled music, till it seem 
The trouble of the sea become 

Only the burden of a dream! 



XIV. OVER AGAIN. 

When the poplars patter. 
You can hear her talk; 



124 ^^ SUMMER NIGHTS. 

When the wild wind rises, 
And mighty shadows stalk, — 

The lovely ghostly lady 

That haunts the garden walk. 

The chains that bind the poplars 
Swing and clank and twist; 

When the moon comes breaking 
Through that bank of mist. 

You will see the filmy fetter 
That chains the filmy wrist. 

When that sudden moonshine, 
Weird and white, shall burst, 

The shrouding gloom will kindle 
With splendor interspersed. 

Ah, how fair the face is ! — ■ 
How fair and how accurst ! 

What eternal longing, 

What pitiful disdain. 
In the great eyes' glory 

Flashing back again 
Those swords of the archangels 

Crossed in eternal pain! 



IN SUMMER NIGHTS. 12$ 

Around her all the roses 

Shake all their velvet leaves; 

The summer night's vast sweetness 
Bends down to her, and cleaves, 

To hide with veils of darkness 
The darker thing she grieves. 

What is it such wan passion 

Forever whispereth? 
Why echoes all our laughter 

Such sobbing underbreath ? 
Why trails across our pleasure 

That darker thing than death ? 

Come in, come in : the moon sets, 

And horror arms his hosts ; 
Ah, what a storm comes heaving 

Far up these lonely coasts ! 
Oh, hasten, love and lover, 

Lest ye, too, turn to ghosts ! 



SHELTERED. 

Open the door! Did you hear it? 

Muffled in mist and gloom, 
Out of this rough northeaster 

It fell like a stroke of doom. 
Some gunner is lost on the meadow — 

Hark ! No ! 'T was a swivel's boom ! 

Do you know what the boom of a swivel 

Means on a night like this ? 
Can you see the bare masts tottering 

Over a black abyss ? 
There lurching decks, and here firesides 

Robbed of their rosy bliss ? 

Oh, I know of two old hands wringing 

Where every ember is gray ! 
'T is an old shadow swings that lantern 

Down by the storm-blown bay, 
To a fair and faithless darling 

Signaling home that way. 



SHELTERED. 12/ 

For out of one house the gladness 

Went in a long eclipse, 
When she fled to-day with her lover, — 

Fled to the shore and its ships; 
Never a whisper of parting, 

Never a kiss on the lips. 

And the chill rain beats about her, — 
Their child with the golden locks, — 

While out in the thick wild weather, 
Girt by the sands and the rocks. 

The little schooner trembles 
To the tread of the equinox. 

Has it come again since we listened? 

Ah ! — Well, then, make the door fast. 
What a great gust shakes the rafter ! 

How black and bitter the blast ! 
Stir the fire. In the sands to-morrow 

Will be plenty of drift-wood cast. 



THE OLD POET AND HIS WIFE. 

Around her fell the evening glow, 
Her old hands lying on her knee, 
As if the years had bent her low. 
"When I was young and fair," sighed she, 
" Oh, long, so very long, ago " — 
" Nay, nay, my love, you still are so ; 
You always will be fair to me, — 
You always will be fair!" said he. 

"But I was fairer when a bride; 
Ah, mock not these gray hairs that know — 
So swift, so swift the seasons slide," 
She murmured, — "seventy winters' snow." 

"Nay, there," said he, "the lights still hide 
In gilded shadows where divide 
The locks in hyacinthine flow, 
While in this mask of age you go." 

"Alas! and were it so, unseen 
Even the mask lies soon. How soon, 



THE OLD POET AND HIS WIFE. 1 29 

How soon," she sighed, " my grave is green ! 
The thrush without me trills his tune, 
Without me twilight is serene ; 
All things forget that I have been, 
And still on balanced wings the moon 
Pursues the purple darks of June ! " 

"Nay, summer comes," he said, "and goes 
By you, as in some desert spot 
Sands, fan the porphyry Pharaohs, 
Unnoting, and divinely hot. 
Let the bird build, and let the rose 
Flower as the star flowers at the close 
Of day, — you will not be forgot. 
For you remain when these are not. 

*' They pass, like chaff the loose winds thresh ; 
But you are sealed within my verse. 
With all your blushes ever fresh 
As those bright figures men unhearse, 
The bloom upon the fruity flesh, 
The ribbon in the ringlet's mesh. 
Through sunny centuries nothing worse 
For gray Pompeii's ashen curse ! 
9 



130 THE OLD POET AND HIS WIFE. 

" If Phidias had carved you, dear, 
In ivory, enriched with gold, 
Some blithe barbarian, with his spear, 
Climbing the rampart, bare and bold. 
Had thrust you downward with a jeer ; 
Gaunt roots had wreathed for many a year 
Your beauty, and some boor had rolled 
A broken antique from the mould. 

"Or if on Titian's canvas you 
Had mixed your colors with the sun, 
And from the gates of morning drew 
The splendors that your shape put on. 
Some envious ray, some blistering dew, 
One day would blot the wondrous view, 
When all the spells that Venice spun 
O'er her wan waters were undone ! 

"But in the compass of a song. 
Sweetheart, you breathe diviner air, 
While music beats its pulse along 
The happy lines that hold you there. 
Still when old Homer clear and strong 
Lifts up his voice, what echoes throng 



THE OLD POET AND HIS WIFE. 131 

From fierce kings' voices, sounding where 
Great Helen lives forever fair! 



" And so, far down the years that yearn 
For light and blossom, hid in doom, 
Some eve when skyey fires burn 
To ashes, one in some dim room 
The strain of an old book shall learn, 
And thumb a yellowing leaf, and turn 
To see you stand there and illume 
With sudden shining all the gloom : 

"Just as on that dear day I first 
Drew out, with tender artifice, 
The length of the thick curls that pursed 
Their clinging, clasping shapes to miss 
None of the sunshine, all athirst, 
Like globes of Shiraz grapes that burst 
Gold from the shade. And one bold kiss 
Rapt me, — like this, old wife, and this ! 

"Ay, though a thousand years be fled. 
The sight denied me he shall have : 
The quick throbs kindling rosy red 
The dimpled damask that they gave, 



132 THE OLD POET AND HIS WIFE. 

The darkling glow the soft eyes shed, 
The trembling smile, — Though I be dead, 
Mine, mine, not his, the power to save, — 
A dead old man within my grave ! 

" Yet should you cease from off the face 
Of the sweet earth, and I be blest 
With no man's memory for the space 
Of a song's singing, that is best. 
Laid side by side in some green place 
Asleep, — Fate grants a further grace 
To none. And sweeter, for the rest, 
The earth that holds you in her breast!" 



LOVE IN IDLENESS. 

I. 

When first she met him she was half for- 
lorn, 

Weary of aimless life and empty days, 
Regretting that she ever had been born. 

And wondering whither led her idle ways. 

When first she met him, walking in the wood, 
She saw the morning shining in his eyes, 

Suddenly earth seemed sweet and life seemed 
good 
With deeds worth doing under lofty skies. 

Treading together there the forest floors. 
Around her homesick heart stole flattered 
ease. 
As when warm winds blow from ambrosial 
shores 
To one long sailing on the lonesome seas. 



ONLY A LEAF. 

II. 
Where the late leaves lit all the place, 
He left her, with her ashen face; 

" We shall not meet ! " he lightly cried ; 

"Good-by, sweetheart, the world is wide." 

Though bright the sunshine on that day 
Through the bare boughs around her lay. 
She thought in blackest shadow stood 
The melancholy autumn wood. 

She bent, and lifted from the sod 
A leaf whereon his foot had trod, — 
An idle leaf, but dead and sere. 
It held the heart's blood of the year! 



A LOVER'S GARDEN. 

I THINK the white azaleas, dear, 
Shaped out of air to match thyself, 

Yet doubt if thou wilt find one here 
Among this fragrant flowery pelf; 

For they must hide when thou art near, — 

As pale as moonlight and as clear. 

But any rose that here may blow 
Is not one half so fair as thou, 

Though petaled white with flakes of snow — 
Yet bind no spray about thy brow; 

Let the voluptuous roses go, 

For roses have a thorn, we know. 

But bend, and pass not lightly by. 
Where faintest odors hover low; 

Here filmy violets ensky 

Meanings that should not fail thee so, 

Since in their heaven-deepened dye 

Pure dreams of perfect passion lie. 



136 A LOVER'S GARDEN. 

And here, like spirits of the blest, 
The golden censer in the hand, 

To worship and to praise addressed. 
Rank after rank the lilies stand j 

Long for a place upon thy breast, 

Ask is thy smile or sunshine best \ 

And flout not the famed fleur-de-lis. 
That lightly nods that purple plume j 

Flower of romantic chivalry. 

All France bends to thee in its bloom! 

A royal banner's blazonry, — 

Thy sceptre would it rather be ! 

Where float the moths, the bluebirds sip, 
Where breath is rapture to the core. 

Where honeysuckles climb and slip, 
Linger, and say, Had Eden more? 

Tiptoe, and let the glad things drip 

Their golden honey on thy lip ! 

But o'er those beds of blasting blight. 
Blue hoods of poison and the tomb, — 

That blood-red blossom, a delight 

To look at, but whose touch is doom,— 



A LOVER'S GARDEN, 1 37 

Ah, let thy foot make facile flight 
Through foxglove and through aconite ! 

Yet breathe thee where the winds outroll 
From heliotropes an atmosphere 

Of fullest joy and vaguest dole, 

That makes each moment deep and dear, 

While dim regrets shall fill thy soul, 

And longings for some unknown goal. 

So shall these buds forever bloom 
Around thee in my memory's freak j 

The strawberry-tree refuse thee room. 

The sweet-brier spray brush by thy cheek, 

And thou be fresh 'mid their perfume, 

And white 'mid their ensanguined gloom. 

Then flit down yonder hawthorn coast, 

The ancient lilac alleys thread, 
And turn the labyrinth, and be lost ; 

That one day, when all hope is dead, 
And when the place is dreary most, 
Haunt it, I may, with thy sweet ghost I 



AT AN OLD GRAVE. 

Ruth, daughter of Crisp and Mary Lee, 

Lies here in the hope to rise again : 
She was born in seventeen forty-eight. 

And. died in eighteen hundred and one. 
The gift of grace to her was free, 

She carried her light in the path of men. 
And went from the twilight of this estate 

Whither God himself is the light and sun. 

Thus on the stone was the legend spelled. 

When the yellow lichens were scraped 
away. 
Though myriad touches of storm and shower 

Had smoothed the wrinkled lettering out, 
And the scutcheon the carven cherubs held 

Had slowly faded day after day; 
While, fresh as they bloomed in their earliest 
hour. 

The wantoning vines crept all about. 



AT AN OLD GRAVE. 1 39 

And soon deciphered, it stood sole sign 

For fifty-three long-forgotten years, 
Lonely and childless and sad, perhaps, 

Of outward grace and comfort shorn. 
And the day with its wide, indifferent shine 

It has learned to know, and the night's 
chill tears; 
And round it the train's wild echo flaps 

With screaming speed for the eager morn. 

Beneath the seasons' heavy hand 

The sunken slate leaned down the grave. 
While Mays to Aprils have swiftly wheeled, 

And slow Arcturus has reddened the snow j 
And it sucked the gloom from the sky and 
land 

To that spot where the scanty grasses wave, 
Into the heart of its sombre shield, 

Till the earth spread laughing and bright 
below. 

For over the slope and far away, 
Bathed in the beautiful light of day, 

Dimpled with shadows of floating cloud, 
And blue in the distant summer still, 



140 AT AN OLD GRAVE. 

The level fields of the champaign lay, 
Golden and brown from new-mown hay; 

And behind some lofty and lucid shroud 
The slant sun rained on a lifted hill. 

So when I saw it first, and so. 

Had the burial mount refined to glass, 
And Ruth forsaken her sleep to look, 

She had seen the country lapped in June, 
While the loud bee hummed in the clover 
blow, 

And, far from the idle feet that pass, 
Like the rustle of any limpid brook, 

The throstle fluted his broken tune. 

Did the skies let down upon Ruth's birth- 
night 

Larger and lower their throbbing stars ; 
The river, brimming his banks, flow clear, 

And low winds ripple a silken stir ? 
Did a meteor thrust its veils of light. 

And kingly essences burst their bars, 
All for the love of the new life here. 

And the possibilities born with her ? 



AT AN OLD GRAVE. I4I 

And hour by hour did the skies grow pale, 

The river go by to swell the tide, 
And the spirits that wait on awful chance 

Lift their plumes for a loftier flight ? 
Did the great heart falter, the great fate 
fail, 

And the moment that had been glorified 
Slip into the slow and idle dance 

Of the hours that bring about the light? 

Or a sad spark struck to flickering fire 

Was that life, held close from the glad- 
some wind, 
And set in all too narrow a niche. 

Where rarely breath from the full south 
came. 
Till the mounting spirit, fluttering higher. 

Drew the fluent air expressed and thinned. 
And wasting the odorous oils and rich. 

It turned and fed on its sacred flame ? 

Ah, what matter ? Her life she led 

Seventy years and more ago ; 
Over her slumber the dew distils. 

The wild bird warbles, the wild rose blooms, 



142 AT AN OLD GRAVE. 

As o'er any queen who lies crowned and dead ! 

It may be the innocent natures know 
That as well God's purpose such life fulfils 

As the lives that lead into lofty tombs. 

For haply the simple life of Ruth, 

Unthrilled by a lover's tender touch, 
Unfilled by a mother's sweet content. 

Fed with no honeyed joys at all, 
Reached to the heart of things, in truth. 

And moulded divine results as much 
As the life to which an empire bent, 

While it held the same brown dust in 
thrall ! 

The low cloud blushed and burned to see 

The sun that over her hovered at last j 
Soon would the dews shine all about. 

And the great procession of stars would 
climb, — 
As much for her still, I said, as for me, — 

While I stayed till the sweet-breathed cattle 
passed. 
Nor yet has her murmur quite died out 

That whispers along my lingering rhyme ! * 



LEFT ASHORE. 

Softly it stole up out of the sea, 
The day that brought my dole to me ; 
Slowly into the star-sown gray, 
Dim and dappled, it soared away. 
Who would have dreamed such tender light 
Was brimming over with bale and blight ? 
Who would have dreamed that fitful breeze 
Fanned from the tumult of tossing seas ? 
Oh, softly and slowly stole up from the sea 
The day that brought my dole to me ! 

Glad was I at the open door, 
While my footfall lingered along the floor. 
For three bright heads at that dawn of day 
Close on the self-same pillow lay ; 
Three dear mouths I bent and kissed. 
As the gold and rose and amethyst 
Of the eastern sky was round us shed ; 
And three little happy faces sped 



144 LEFT ASHORE. 

To the dancing boat, — and he went too, — 
And lightly the wind that morning blew. 

Many a time had one and all 

Gone out before to the deep-sea haul ; 

Many a time come rowing back 

Against the tide of the Merrimack, 

With shining freight, and a reddening sail 

Flapping loose in the idle gale ; 

While over them faded the evening glow, 

With stars above and with stars below. 

Trolling and laughing, a welcome din. 

To me, and the warm shore making in. 

Then why that day, as I watched the boat, 

Did I remember the midnight rote 

That rolled a signal across my sleep 

Of the storm that cried from deep to deep, 

Plunging along in its eager haste 

Across the desert and desolate waste. 

Far off through the heart of the gray mid 

seas, 
To rob me forever of all my ease ? 
Oh, I know not : I only know 
That sound was the warning of my woe. 



LEFT ASHORE. 145 

For lo, as I looked, I saw the mist 

Over the channel curl and twist, 

And blot the breaker out of sight 

Where its angry horn gored the waters white. 

Only a sea-turn, I heard them say. 

That the climbing sun will burn away ; 

But I saw it silently settling down 

Like an ashen pall upon the town. 

Oh, hush ! I cried j 't is some huge storm's 

rack ! 
My darlings, my darlings, will never come 

back ! 

All day I stood on the old sea-wall, 
Watching the great swell rise and fall ; 
And the spume and spray drove far and thin, 
But never a sail came staggering in. 
And out of the east a wet wind blew. 
And over my head the foam-flakes flew ; 
Down came the night without a star, 
Loud was the cry of the raging bar ; 
And I wrung my hands, and called, and 

prayed. 
And the black wild east all answer made. 
10 



146 LEFT ASHORE. 

Oh, long ere the cruel night was done 

Came the muffled toll of the minute gun ; 

Nothing it meant to me, I knew, 

Save that other women were waiting too ; 

For many the craft that, cast away, 

On the shoals of the long Plum Island lay, 

Wrecked and naked, a hungry horde 

Of fierce white surges leaping aboard ; 

And bale and bundle came up from the 

sea. 
But nothing ever came back to me. 

And though every pool where the full tides 

toss 
I search for some lock of curling floss. 
Yet still in my window, night by night. 
The little candle is burning bright ; 
For, oh, if I suddenly turned to meet 
My darlings coming with flying feet. 
While I in the place they left me sat, 
No greater marvel 'twould be than that 
When so softly, so slowly, stole up from the 

sea 
The day that brought my dole to me ! 



TWAIN. 

Once they were one, as the Hght is, 

Whose colors are seven, 
Whose source is the ancient of ancients, 

Whose splendor fills heaven. 

And as blossoms are bright in the sunshine, 
Birds build, and bees murmur, 

So all things took root in their gladness. 
Grew greater and firmer. 

But now ! Have you looked on two shadows 

Two storm-clouds are urging 
Over wastes of disaster and ruin 

That tempests are scourging? 

Ah, as utterly twain as such shadows 

Are they, in whose gladness 
All things that were glad now are fallen 

The wreck of their madness ! 



148 TWAIN. 

Sad souls, that were able to torture 
Such pangs from such blisses, 

Shall the years after death ever bring you 
No nearer than this is ? 

Shall the red rose of love fail to bourgeon 

In fields always sunny, 
And the flower whose thorns had your hearts' 
blood 

Refuse you its honey? 



ALL 

Hot smoked the hills, a sultry breath; 
Hot lay the city underneath. 
The tired slaves dropped from the hand 
The heavy peacock plumes they fanned ; 
Or brought, with languid step and slow, 
The lavendered and sugared snow; 
Or swept aside, fold over fold, 
The curtains of the cloth of gold. 
Where lay the king, with fevered mouth, 
In his pavilion to the south. 

When, like the answer to some prayer, 

Crept a soft rustle on the air, 

Up from the gardens stole a breeze 

Across the gilded lattices. 

And waved the perfumed fountains' flow 

Like shining ribbons to and fro ; 

And sighed across the king's repose 

The breath of jasmine and of rose, 



150 ALL 

The fragrance of the falling fruit \ 

And brought the tinkle of a lute, 

Brought the low song, and brought the stir 

Of happy voices praising her 

Who sang, and brought, recurring slow, 

A far faint cry, a wail of woe. 

The monarch turned him in his ease, — 
Again that plaint his dream to tease ! 
Long as the pleasant wind should blow, 
That far faint cry, that wail of woe ! 
Again it came across the noon, 
And jarred upon the joyous tune, 
And hushed the warbling flute and fret, 
Where, underneath their golden net, 
The singing birds sprang airily 
From myrtle bough and citron-tree; 
And as the music welled anew. 
The melancholy note came too, 
And mingled in discordant strain 
This world of bliss, that world of pain. 

" Fetch me the wretch ! " cried Haroun then ; 

"Fetch me that wretchedest of men, 
Who lifts, to vex the soul in me, 
His pipe of petty misery! 



ALL 151 

Shall such a base and trivial thing 
Prevent my peace, and I be king?" 

"Let thy slave speak," a voice replied. 

"By the king's word one will have died 
Before this shining day grows dim, — 
'T is AH's women mourning him." 

Upon his silken cushions then 
The king his slumber sought again; 
But far away all slumber kept 
The while those wailing women wept. 
Dull to his sense the sweet sounds came,. 
And dark the sunshine's fragrant flame, — 
Dark as the shameful day should be 
That set on All's treachery. 
" Let music cease, let none be glad ! " 
The eunuch cried. "The king is sad. 
But hither bid the Jew, to sing, 
And satisfy my lord the king, 
Out of the ancient songs he knows 
Of prophets prophesying woes." 

And the Jew sang: "O king! the air 
Blows o'er the fair earth everywhere. 



152 ALL 

And blows again. From day to day 
The sun sheds his eternal ray. 
Stars rise and set, but every night 
The same, their terrible white light 
Searching the little soul of man 
Born of a woman, and a span 
Measures whose being, scarce less brief 
Than the space left the dancing leaf. 
The beauty of the world remains ; 
But man, with all his pride and pains, 
Is but a smoke, — ay, like the breath 
Of his own nostril vanisheth. 
The generations go their ways; 
A pinch of dust is all that stays, — 
A pinch of dust that idle air 
Blows o'er the fair earth everywhere. 

" Build thee thy palace. Let the doors 
Be cedarn, and of brass the floors; 
And let thy purple curtains swing 
Their cunning work, thy fountains fling 
Their silver waters ; have thy fill 
Of milk and honey from the hill, 
While moon-faced damsels round thee sing,- 
One day thou art not, thou, O king ! 



ALL 153 

"Build thee thy tomb. Of mountain rock 
Fashion its members, that they mock 
Time's thrusts, and overlay its arch 
In gold to stay an army's march, 
And carve the crypt out for thy bones, 
And lay the walks in pleasant stones, 
And wrap round thy magnificence 
Aloes and myrrh and frankincense. 
And light thy lamp. At last the sod 
Some laborer turns, himself a clod, 
Within its tangled roots and mould 
All that is left of thee shall hold. 

" Where are the kings long dead ? Their tombs 
Are oversfrown with bitter blooms. 
There is no king, there is no slave, 
Nor work, nor wisdom, in the grave. 
The lice that plagued th' Egyptian day, 
Man were more pitiable than they, 
If one thing passed not these vain things, — 
The mercy of the King of kings." 
And the Jew sang, "O king! thus saith 
The Lord of life, the Lord of death." 



154 ^L^- 

Propped upon either hand, Haroun 
Gazed wide-eyed on the vacant noon, 
Listening; then rent his scarf, and cried: 
" What boots it that my land is wide ; 
That my victorious armies go 
Only to meet a crawling foe j 
That Justice sits upon my seat, 
With the drawn sword beneath her feet; 
That all my palaces are fair 
In pillared arches everywhere. 
Set all in gold and precious stones 
And carven ivory of thrones. 
Beneath the shade of branching palms, 
Among the gardens and their balms ? 
Why do I watch the almonds shake. 
Day long, their blossoms in the lake, 
Or take my pleasure in the court 
To see the laughing children sport, 
Rose-limbed, in all their dimpled pranks, 
Within the shallow water tanks ? 
Why do my dancers make delight. 
When the pale cressets throw at night 
Long lights on the delicious dusk 
Heavy with ambergris and musk, 



ALL 155 

While softly steals the liquid note, 
Shaking the nightingale's pure throat, 
Then mounts to some ecstatic height 
As a wing beats when lost in light? 
What joyance should I take in love ? 
Why should my blood the swifter move 
When over me the white slave bends, 
The gold-haired woman Venice sends 
From the far isles beyond the sea? 
What blessedness in these can be, 
When to no end I draw my breath 
But loathsome and disgusting death. 
That holds me beggared in his thrall, 
Till nothing is the close of all? 
The stars shall keep their awful place, 
But I and all my mighty race 
Are but a song when sound has fled. 
Cease like a story that is said. 
Accurst the day when I was born, 
The purple night, the melting morn! 
Accurst the breast whereon I lay! 
Accurst this handful of red clay! 
Haroun is but some meanest thing, — 
O dust and ashes, you are king!" 



156 ALL 

And the king wept. And through the place 
Crept silence for a little space, 
Till once more came, recurring slow, 
That far faint cry, that wail of woe. 
"What ! " whispered Haroun \ " weep they still 
That Ali suffers the king's will ? 
Is the slight remnant of his year 
So little worth, 'yet worth a tear.? 
And can the breaking heart so praise 
The nothingness of length of days ? 
Bid the sound cease ! " he cried. " Give o'er ! 
I never was a king before. 
Here I defy the powers that slay I 
The breath upon the lip I stay ! 
Are life and death the king's to give? 
Bring Ali forth ! Let the worm live ! " 



AGATHA'S SONG. 

Sooner or later, the storms shall beat 
Over my slumber from head to feet ; 
Sooner or later, the winds shall rave 
In the long grass above my grave. 

I shall not heed them where I lie, 
Nothing their sound shall signify ; 
Nothing the head-stone's fret of rain. 
Nothing to me the dark day's pain. 

Sooner or later, the sun shall shine 

With tender warmth on that mound of mine ; 

Sooner or later, in summer air. 

Clover and violet blossom there. 

I shall not feel in that deep-laid rest 
The sheeted light fall over my breast ; 
Nor ever note in those hidden hours 
The wind-blown breath of the tossing flowers. 



158 AGATHA'S SONG. 

Sooner or later, the stainless snows 
Shall add their hush to my mute repose ; 
Sooner or later shall slant and shift 
And heap my bed with their dazzling drift. 

Chill though that frozen pall shall seem, 
Its touch no colder can make the dream 
That recks not the sweet and sacred dread 
Shrouding the city of the dead. 

Sooner or later, the bee shall come 
And fill the noon with his golden hum ; 
Sooner or later, on half-poised wing, 
The bluebird's warble about me ring, — 

Ring and chirrup and whistle with glee, 
Nothing his music means to me ; 
None of these beautiful things shall know 
How soundly their lover sleeps below. 

Sooner or later, far out in the night. 
The stars shall over me wing their flight j 
Sooner or later, the answering dews 
Catch the white spark in their silent ooze. 



AGATHA'S SONG. 1 59 

Never a ray shall part the gloom 
That wraps me round in the kindly tomb j 
Peace shall be perfect for lip and brow 
Sooner or later, — but, oh, not now ! 



ESHER'S SONG. 

Wild wails the wind, and blind the night 
and dreary, 
No star abroad, no light upon the earth ; 
The fitful flame, of flickering grown weary, 
Dead in its ash has fallen on the hearth. 
Oh, cease, sad heart, your beating. 

Cease your eager flight, 
To no glad purpose fleeting. 
To no delight 1 

The swollen blast comes keening up the valley. 
Shuddering and sighing past my shaken 
door j 
No summer breeze of gentle toss and dally, — 
A vast black breath blown from the un- 
known shore ! 
Oh, cease, sad heart, your beating. 

Cease your eager flight. 
Oh, driven leaf, unweeting 
Of bloom or blight ! 



ESHER'S SONG. l6l 

Ah, if far out upon the screaming billow 
Some mast I loved were feathered by the 
sea! 
Or if on some wet grave I made my pillow 
That held the thing that once was dear to 
me ! 
Oh, cease, sad heart, your beating. 

Cease your eager flight, 
No prayer of power entreating 
From any height ! 

For desolate, for desolate and lonely. 

Aimless and blind, without a wish I grope ; 

My mood a wan and stagnant shadow only, — 

'T is not despair, for it was never hope ! 

Oh, cease, sad heart, your beating, 

Cease your eager flight. 

So sharp the storm is sleeting, 

Sd wild the night ! 
II 



MY OWN SONG. 

GLAD am I that I was born! 
For who is sad when flaming morn 
Bursts forth, or when the mighty night 
Carries the soul from height to height ! 

To me, as to the child that sings, 
The bird that claps his rain-washed wings, 
The breeze that curls the sun -tipped flower, 
Comes some new joy with each new hour. 

Joy in the beauty of the earth, 

Joy in the fire upon the hearth, 

Joy in that potency of love 

In which I live and breathe and move ! 

Joy even in the shapeless thought 

That, some day, when all tasks are wrought, 

1 shall explore that vasty deep 
Beyond the frozen gates of sleep. 



MY OWN SONG. 163 

For joy attunes all beating things, 
With me each rhythmic atom sings, 
From glow till gloom, from murk till morn, 
O glad am I that I was born ! 



MEASURE FOR MEASURE. 

What love do I bring you ? The earth, 

Full of love, were far lighter; 
The great hollow sky, full of love, 
Something slighter. 

Earth full and heaven full were less 

Than the full measure given ; 

Nay, say a heart full, — the heart 

Holds earth and heaven ! 



VALENTINE'S DAY. 

Beloved, no great birthday dawn 
Of summer tinct with spices fine, 

Of sapphire skies and splendid blooms, 
Can dim the dear delight of thine ! 

The ardent arch of August days 

May veil itself in wizard haze; 
But not in all such sweet decline 
Fate sent thee for my Valentine! 

The winter weather, clear and fair, 
When all the air from stain was free. 

And far and blue the still sky soared 
O'er lands of calm from hill to sea ; 

While deepening sunsets long and low 

Ebbed ruddier over blushing snow, — 
That winter weather summoned thee 
To life itself, to life and me. 

How clean the land reposed ! How pure 
From sky to sky its spotless white ! 



1 66 VALENTINE'S DAY. 

What promise in the beckoning day, 

What mystery in alluring night ! 
Oh, up what depths of violet dark 
The crystal stars leaned forth to mark 
How forests felt the ice-sheathed flight 
Of rivers rushing to the light! 

O love ! thy soul was like the earth 
Wrapped so serenely in its snows; 

And by and by such searching sun, 

And by and by such south wind blows ! 

From dreams divine in odorous cells 

Waken at length the wild flower bells ; 
The sacred haunts their wealth disclose, 
And widely blooms the perfect rose ! 

Clear eyes that opened on the world. 
Your dusky wells received what cheer ? 

How couldst thou twice the twelvemonth live 
Before my soul was kindled, dear ? 

Where was I, darling, in those days, — 

Those tender twice-returning days, — 
When eagerly thou met'st the year. 
When life was glad and I not here? 



VALENTINE'S DAY. 1 6/ 

Strange, shadowy time, ere I had made 
A tone in the sphere's harmony ! 

Yet source of those immortal things 
That blend love with infinity. 

I am an attribute of thine : 

Came with thy senses rare and fine. 
Stay while those powers most regal be, 
Die when thou hast no need of me. 

No need of me ? The airs shall fail, 
Streams be forgotten by the sea. 

Red autumn paint no country-side. 
The wintry weather cease to be, 

But thou and I shall part no more ; 

The heavens shall reel from earth before, 
The constant sun to death may flee. 
And yet thou shalt* have need of me I 



THE RIVER. 

Your life and mine, O constant heart, have 
glided 

Like two streams into one j 
We flow along, — ■ and now our way is guided 

In shade, and now in sun. 

For miles I wandered through the placid 
meadow 
Wide stretching to the sky; 
In me the wild-flower watched his painted 
shadow, — 
In me the cloud on high. 

But you on the great hillside freshly bubbled, 

By secret sluices sent 
From some deep source in the rock's heart 
untroubled. 

Where sunbeam never bent. 



THE RIVER. 169 

Into the glad, free ether you came leaping j 
The sunshine heard your tone, 

And o'er the crested spur your wild way 
sweeping, 
It made you all its own. 

Sunshine, or streamlet, or the fleece of 
heaven ? 

The valleys upward creep, 
Till your far voice beneath the starry seven 

Falls singing them to sleep. 

Still o'er the lofty ledges lightly dashing, 

The echoes round you play ; 
The morning radiance in your trail is flash- 
ing, 

Wild roses catch your spray. 

All noontide lustre and all sylvan fragrance 

About you brood and blow ; 
The late chill moonbeams come as pallid va- 
grants 

To reach earth gladlier so. 



I/O THE RIVER. 

By night, a shining thread of music flowing 

The clear dark sky along, 
The stars about you sparkling, dipping, 
going, 

Dreams floating down your song, — 

By day and night, to your advancing murmur 

The crystal in his niche 
Gathers ; the sapling bends to you, and 
firmer 

Plants him, and grows more rich. 

The plains, below, a royal sward are keeping 

For your white feet to chide, 
O joyous brook, that, out of heaven leaping, 

Comes wandering to my side. 

Long seasons now, with sunshine in our 
shallows. 

Green glooming o'er our deeps. 
We wind, where under lea of fertile fallows 

Perpetual summer sleeps. 

Upon our trace we fling a foam of blossom, 
The showers trend down our way, 



THE RIVER. 171 

The sacred azure darkens in our bosom, 
The landscapes toward us sway. 

Deeper the channel wears, and ever broader 

From the exhaustless wells 
The rhythmic tides, in their mysterious order, 

Slide on slow silvery swells. 

A gracious stream, whose banks are set with 
blessing, 

That under tranquil skies 
And into calms of golden sunset pressing 

On the horizon dies, — 

Or drawn to seek the gray and wondrous 
fountains, 

Far sounding, shall it be, 
A river rushing between mighty mountains 

We burst upon the sea } 

The hoary and illimitable ocean. 

That darkly to and fro 
Rocks the vast volumes of its central motion 

Where no wind dares to blow ! 



\J2 THE RIVER. 

O life my own, let not that awful swinging- 
Sunder us far apart, 

But the eternities confess our clinging, 
And pulse us heart to heart ! 



